Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Nov 1: Mainta-ining that he was not surprised over the Hurriyat Conference’s ‘no to the dialogue process’, former Union Minister and ex-State president of Congress party, Prof Saif-ud-Din Soz today held the statements by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, MoS in PMO Dr Jitendra Singh and senior PDP leader Muzaffar Hussain Beg responsible for the negative response to talks.
“Jaitley said categorically, while rebutting P Chidambaram and quoting him out of context, that Congress was creating a disaster by offering Autonomy to Kashmir which is a settled issue and Jammu and Kashmir State is an integral part of India. He stressed that no more Autonomy was needed to Kashmir. Jatinder Rana of Jammu also made it clear enough on behalf of the BJP that dialogue process has been there and Dineshwar Sharma was not a special emissary. Like Jaitley, he emphasized that there was no problem in Kashmir and it was a settled issue and Kashmir was an integral part of India for all times to come,” Prof Soz said in a statement issued here today.
As if this was not enough, Prof Soz added, Muzaffar Beg of the PDP spoke to ETV very recently and gave a clear message to the Hurriyat saying, “whatever little you have (Bacha Khacha of 370), have that and don’t look to Pakistan as it (Pakistan) could do nothing for them.”
“It was, therefore, that I was not puzzled to see in the press today that the Hurriyat Conference had said No to the Dialogue,” Prof Soz explained. He further said that his assessment was that what the people like Jaitley and Jatinder Rana said on the dialogue constituted an affront to Home Minister Rajnath Singh whose narrative on Kashmir has been on a different line; certainly, conducive to the dialogue process.
“In fact, I had satisfied myself to believe PM Modi’s statement on embracing Kashmiris that he made on this year’s Independence Day because Rajnath Singh had sustained the spirit of that statement through his recent narrative on Kashmir,” he added.
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