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| BJP opposes and supports Article 370 at the same time | | | Early Times Report
JAMMU, Sept 30: Something is fundamentally wrong with the so-called nationalist and integrationist BJP. It says one thing in Jammu & Kashmir and exactly the opposite in Delhi or elsewhere in the country on the same subject. In Jammu & Kashmir, for example, the BJP not only supports Article 370 but also goes further to appease its coalition partner, PDP, and the valleyites. But in Delhi, the BJP opposes Article 370 and questions Jawaharlal Nehru for conferring special status upon Jammu & Kashmir on the ground that it was a Muslim-majority state.
Just go through the PDP-BJP agenda of alliance and you would yourself find that the BJP gave up its age-old demand for the abrogation of Article 370 and accepted the PDP's stand on the state's political status and agreed to go beyond Article 370 under which the state enjoys a separate status within the Indian Union. The Agenda of Alliance says that "while recognizing the different positions and appreciating the perceptions BJP and PDP have on the constitutional status of Jammu & Kashmir considering the political and legislative realities, the present position (under Article 370) will be maintained on all the constitutional provisions pertaining to Jammu & Kashmir, including the special status in the Constitution of India".
Even a political naïve person would agree with the oft-repeated suggestion that the BJP accepted Article 370 only for the sake of power. The point is that no BJP leader of any standing has during the past seven months even once raised the issue of Article 370 in Jammu & Kashmir. If anything, all the BJP leaders, national or local, have repeatedly declared that the BJP was bound by the agenda of alliance and it will implement it in collaboration with the PDP.
Believe it or not, but it is a fact that the BJP on Tuesday appreciated the recent admission by the Delhi High Court of a petition that challenged the constitutional validity of Article 370. Appreciating the development, BJP national spokesperson Sanju Verma criticised the state's special status and said Article 370 must be revoked. She was participating in a debate on Article 370, organiszed by NewX at 10 p.m.
She, like other participants barring the PDP leader and political analyst with the state government Waheed-ur-Rehman Parra, took on those who incorporated Article 370 in the Indian Constitution to drive Jammu & Kashmir away from the Indian political and constitutional organisation. "Why should one state of the Union be treated separately,"? she asked, and added that abrogation of Article 370 was a must to bring the state at par with other states of the union and ensure its development. She also endorsed the view of other participants that imposition of Article 370 has created many problems for India and empowered the state government to grant or not to grant citizenship rights to the non-state subjects. In fact, she not only opposed Article 370 but also demanded repeal of Article 35-A of the Indian Constitution, saying it was unconstitutional and it made invidious, humiliating and unjust distinctions between the state subjects and non-state subjects. Article 35-A was incorporated in the Indian Constitution in 1954 and the Nehru government didn't take the Parliament into confidence.
What the agenda of alliance says and what Sanju Verma said yesterday during the TV debate should clinch the whole issue and establish that the BJP plays politics of convenience and that it is committed only to power and not to anything else. |
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