Two days after Gujarat Chief Minister and the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi triggered a political row by demanding a debate on utility of Article 370, the BJP denied there was any dilution in its long-standing demand for abrogation of the constitutional provision according special status to Jammu & Kashmir.
The BJP said the Article has been used as a shield to stop many of the great legislations which have been passed in the country from reaching J&K. “What Modi has intended to do is to highlight how this Article has been used by a small, privileged and influential section of J&K to filter out several progressive legislations intended to empower our citizens. This Modi has done, by highlighting the reality that there is discrimination against women, SCs, STs and OBCs,” BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman said.
She pointed out that no elections to local bodies have been held in the State in four years and that the delimitation exercise has not been done there. “It may be time now for the Congress, National Conference and Omar Abdullah to explain and answer questions on how they have denied the people of J&K — women, SCs, STs and OBCs in particular — their rights,” she said, adding the much-touted Right to Information Act has been modified and diluted under the last three Chief Ministers of J&K.
BJP vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi claimed the Article was not a ‘holy book’ over which there cannot be a debate. BJP leader Subramanian Swamy took exception to National Conference president and Cabinet Minister Farooq Abdullah’s comments that Modi cannot repeal Article 370 even if he becomes Prime Minister for ten terms. “I do not know which Constitution Farooq Abdullah is reading.
In fact, the Constitution ensures that for repealing Article 370, you do not even need a Parliamentary vote... It requires the President to issue a notification, cancel or quash the Article,” he said. However, the BJP continued to receive brickbats from political adversaries on this. CPI leader Gurudas Dasgupta said J&K’s special status, which is provided by Article 370 of the Constitution, is not a debatable issue but settled for all times to come. If there is a debate over it, it is being done to cause communal tension, the veteran Communist leader said. Congress leader and Union Minister Rajiv Shukla said BJP was creating an unwarranted row over an issue which has been there since 1947. “It is totally unnecessary,” he said.