SRINAGAR: Former Union Minister and senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Yashwant Sinha today said that the Centre should immediately clear it’s stand on Article 35-A of the Constitution, which grants special status to the residents of Jammu and Kashmir.
Meanwhile, four state ministers led by Finance Minister Haseeb Drabu will go to New Delhi today to garner support of the BJP top brass, besides seeking legal support of the central government to defend Article 35-A in the Supreme Court (SC), which has accepted to head a plea questioning the validity of the Article.
“People of Jammu and Kashmir are very concerned over the issue and the Centre should clear it’s stand,” Mr Sinha, who is here on a three-day visit since August 16 told mediapersons.
He said the Jammu and Kashmir government has already filed a reply against the petition challenging the Article in the Supreme Court .
“Now it is the duty of the Centre to make it’s stand clear on the issue as people are very concerned here,” he said. Mr Sinha, who heads Delhi based Concerned Citizens Group (CCG), had met former chief ministers and opposition National Conference (NC) president and working president Dr Farooq Abdullah and Mr Omar Abdullah here and discussed the overall political situation in Kashmir valley yesterday.
“Our meetings are the continuation of peace mission that we had started last year,” Mr Sinha told reporters after meeting Abdullahs.
He said that the meeting with Mr Abdullah lasted for an hour in which the prevailing situation was discussed. “We also discussed what the policy and attitude of the government should be for peace in the state,” the senior BJP leader said.
“We have again come here on peace mission and would meet people of different shades to have first hand information of the situation in the Valley,” he said.
Referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Independence Day speech in which he said that “bullets and abuses won’t solve Kashmir problem”, he said it has given a hope that things would change for better now.
Mr Sinha has also met Governor N N Vohra besides hold Question-Answer session with students in the frontier district of Kupwara yesterday. (AGENCIES)
Follow our WhatsApp channel
