Early Times Report
JAMMU, Apr 26: Ever since April 11, when people in different states went out to elect members to the Lok Sabha, the Election Commission has been taking action against leaders belonging to the BJP, the Congress, the SP, the BSP, the TMC, to mention only a few, for making inflammatory speeches, arousing popular passions and demanding votes in the name of religion and caste. It took action against BJP's UP CM Yogi Aditya Nath, Sadhvi Pragya Thakur of the BJP, Mayawati of BSP, Azam Khan of the SP, Navjot Singh Sidhu of the Congress and several other leaders. Some of them were barred from campaigning from 2 to 3 days and were further warned that strict action will be taken against those who would violate the Model Code of Conduct and vitiate the socio-religious and political atmosphere of the country by seeking votes in the name of religion and caste. As for Jammu & Kashmir, the EC has utterly failed to rein in Kashmiri leaders like NC's Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah and PDP's Mehbooba Mufti. All of them have been making highly divisive statements and singing Pakistani song to woo the voters in Kashmir. All of them have been seeking votes in Kashmir by telling the electorate that Jammu & Kashmir is a disputed territory between India and Pakistan, that Jammu & Kashmir is a bridge between India and Pakistan and that Jammu & Kashmir would secede from India if the Narendra Modi Government continued to behave in the fashion it has been behaving after June 2019.
Not only this, all these leaders from Kashmir have been openly saying during their election rallies that "Jammu and Kashmir is a Muslim-majority State and that its Muslim-majority character has to be maintained". In other words, they have been opposing the presence of any Indian in Kashmir". But more than that, all of them have been denouncing the Army and the paramilitary forces and speaking for the slain militants and against the actions being taken by the Government of India against the dreaded JKLF and its chief Yasin Malik, Jamaat-e-Islami and its leadership and Hurriyat Conference and its leadership and children of separatists like Shabir Shah and Syed Ali Shah Geelani, thus openly supporting those who have been blooding and convulsing the state's political scene since decades. The EC of India should have taken cognizance of their divisive and provocative statements, but it failed. The result has been that the Abdullahs and Muftis are feeling emboldened to muddy the Indian waters in Kashmir. |
