Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Aug 2: Former Union Minister and MLA, Prof Chaman Lal Gupta today attacked ruling leaders of the Congress as also of the National Conference (NC) for discriminating with Jammu and Ladakh regions. He termed such regional imbalances a danger to the unity of the State and against the interest of the country.
Reacting over the statements of the Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and some others about the creation of Telangana in wake of agitation, Prof Gupta said that such like unrest is an obvious corollary.
He pointed out that Jammu and Ladakh were always maltreated. “This was established even in various reports on regional disparities including Gajandhar Gadkar Commission as far back as about 45 years now”, he said, adding little remedial measures were taken but the discrimination in various spheres like political representation, services, developmental activities, allotment of funds etc, is still continuing.
Gupta asserted that the root cause for this discrimination lies in the denial of due political representation to Jammu and pointed out that despite having almost double the area and equal population, Jammu has been given just two Lok Sabha and 37 Assembly seats as against three Lok Sabha and 43 Assembly seats to Valley of Kashmir.
Questioning the sincerity of the ruling leaders, Prof Gupta said that they should explain that why fair delimitation of the constituencies was always denied and an embargo has been put through a constitutional amendment unlike other parts of the country that there would be no delimitation till 2026.
The former MP also recalled that Congress in their election manifestos itself had promised to bring a legislation to ensure fair delimitation of the Constituencies but it is regrettable that despite expiry of more than 10 years now, they did not keep up their promise.
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