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| Congress also jumps on to the separatists' bandwagon | | Citizenship rights to WPRs | | Neha
Early Times Report
Jammu, Feb 5: The Congress, which claims that it is a secular and democratic organization of an all-India character and that it was committed to empowering the hapless refugees from West Pakistan, on Wednesday did a complete U-turn on the issue of West Pakistan Refugees (WPRs) by jumping on to the separatists' bandwagon. A day before, SoS leader Rajiv Chuni had also took an anti-WPRs stand and declared that his organization will oppose any move that was designed to settle the WPRs in J&K, as they were not state subjects. He had also denounced the Government of India for its stand on the WPRs. SoS is one of the organizations which represent the views of the refugees from Pakistan-occupied-J&K. It needs to be underlined that almost all the social, political and separatist groups in the Valley as well as the Kashmiri intelligentsia and commentators have been opposing the recommendation of the joint parliamentary committee of the Union Home Ministry that the WPRs be granted permanent residency status and voting right. They have been saying that the Union Government's move is aimed at changing the demography of the state and destroying the Muslim-majority character of the state. Pakistanon Wednesday also took the same line and accused the BJP-led NDA government at the centre of changing the demography of Kashmir by settling the West Pakistan Hindu refugees in the state.
It is also important to note that the Congress till Wednesday didn't react. It neither opposed the recommendation nor endorsed it. It was onlyWednesday that the Congress questioned the Union Government's well-meaning move. Reacting to the ongoing controversy over the WPRs issue, JKPCC chief Saif-ud-Din Soz said that the NC-Congress coalition government didn't recommend citizenship rights for the WPRs and that it only talked about three-categories of refugees. The NC-Congress coalition government had devised a package that was approved by its alliance partner NC and it was meant for three-categories of refugees, but the BJP-led NDA Government "deliberately" added the dimension of WPRs, he said. "We had advocated a package for three categories of refugees living in Jammu-PoJK, refugees of 1965 Indo-Pak war and refugees of 1971 Indo-Pak war," Soz said, and added that "after cabinet nod, the proposal was forwarded to the Government of India for approval".
What the JKPCC chief said must have shocked the Congress leaders from Jammu, especially Madan Lal Sharma, Sham Lal Sharma, Manjit Singh and many others, who had openly and unambiguously supported the cause of the WPRs. The stand which Soz took on Wednesday will not go down well with the Congress leaders from Jammu, as all the WPRs live in different parts of Jammu province, as also because they are also entitled to vote in the Lok Sabha election. The statement of Soz came at a time when the Congress leaders from Jammu and their supporters are in a state of shock following the humiliating defeat of the Congress in the Lok Sabha and assembly elections. |
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