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| DyCM lands in ‘land soup’ | | | Early Times Reporter
Jammu | Feb 14
While showcasing the scenic beauty and hard-selling Kashmir to attract infrastructure investment, the Deputy Chief Minister Muzaffar Hussain Baig has landed in a political soup.
Opposition political parties, particularly the National Conference and the separatists have ganged up against Baig for inviting outsiders to buy land in Kashmir even though the Deputy Chief Minister has denied having made any such statement.
While addressing a functioning in connection with the winter games in New Delhi earlier this week, the Deputy Chief Minister Muzaffar Hussain Baig was reported to have invited the outsiders to invest in Jammu and Kashmir. Some reports, though denied by him, said that he asked the entrepreneurs and investors to buy lands and raise tourism infrastructure in the state.
Baig’s statement had stirred a hornet’s nest, particularly in the Kashmir Valley, as people are accusing him and the Peoples Democratic Party of making attempts to dilute special status of the state. This is second time that the PDP has come under direct attack on the question of special status of the state which though this party claims to be protecting the most.
In 2006, the then Tourism Minister Mohammad Dillawar Mir came under fire for inviting the investors to take land on lease in Gulmarg for building tourism infrastructure. After an all pervasive attack including from the militant organizations, the Cabinet had to withdraw a decision on land lease.
Corned from all sides over his reported statement, Baig today said that he has been quoted out of context. In a statement issued here this evening, the Deputy Chief Minister strongly denied the news report attributed to him, suggesting that non-state subjects could buy land in Jammu and Kashmir.
Baig said the news report had created an unnecessary controversy and he would like to set it at rest by affirming that under the constitution of the state non-state subjects were not entitled to purchase of land in Jammu and Kashmir.
Meanwhile, the leader of Opposition Abdul Rahim Rather has said that Peoples Democratic Party is determined to erode the special status of Jammu and Kashmir and change the demography of state, thereby destroying the character of the state.
Condemning the alleged statement of PDP leader and Deputy Chief Minister Muzaffar Hussain Baig, National Conference leader said that PDP is hoodwinking the people of state with their slogans of self-rule, while they have a sinister design to get the capitalist from all over the country and settle them in Kashmir thereby uprooting the state subject and depriving them of there livelihood.
He said that Baig was the one who advised Governor Jagmohan, then as advocate general to revoke Article 370 and when they did not succeed in there machinations, they are now finding ways and means to somehow erode the constitutional position of the state by compromising the interests of the state subjects.
Rather said, "earlier also PDP coalition government made an effort to bring outsiders of the state in the garb of promoting tourism but the move was scuttled by the vociferous opposition of the National Conference", he regretted that 'Transfer of Property Act' enacted by the PDP government, as it has laid the foundation for diluting the constitutional status of the Jammu and Kashmir state.
The leader of opposition said that Baig has no business to term the politicians fighting for the cause of people of Kashmir as 'fundamentalist' as every state subject is committed to uphold the sanctity of the constitutional guarantees provided to the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
Rather said that people like Baig are time server who propagate the agenda of their masters because to them, to remain in their good books is more important than the welfare of the state. He said that National Conference will oppose any move from any quarter to dilute the constitutional status of Jammu and Kashmir irrespective of the consequences. |
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