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| Jaitley does plain-speaking, advocates full integration | | Returning to pre 1998 Era-II | | NEHA
JAMMU, July 8: Not content with what he said about Nehru and the Congress party, Arun Jaitley launched a blistering attack on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh without, of course, naming him. He questioned him for suggesting that borders between India and Pakistan should be rendered irrelevant and rightly said that such a step will only enable Pakistan to send infiltrators to Jammu & Kashmir to intensify anti-India activities. He termed the suggestion as "suicidal". He also termed as "futile exercises" the Congress-led UPA government's moves to woo Pakistan and extremists and asserted that "it has no will power to settle the problem". Besides, he ridiculed the moves of the Union Government to constitute working groups, appoint interlocutors and holding roundtable conferences on Jammu & Kashmir and said these exercises will "not solve the problem".
Jaitley also thought it prudent to make his stand on the interlocutors' report public. He did commend the interlocutors' recommendation that three regional councils invested with certain legislative, financial and administrative powers be set up in the state, one each for Jammu Pradesh, Kashmir and Ladakh, saying the BJP had been demanding the creations of such councils since decades believing that establishment of regional councils would end discrimination with Jammu and Ladakh to an extent and enable the people of these two distinct regions manage some of their own affairs themselves in a meaningful manner. "The establishment of regional councils could lead to empowerment of the people of three regions and also end discrimination with Jammu and Ladakh," he said.
However, he lambasted the interlocutors and rejected out-of-hand their suggestion that borders be made porous, central laws extended to the state after 1952 be reviewed and nomenclature of governor and chief minister be changed. "Their suggestion to make borders open, describe PoJK as Pak-Administered-Jammu & Kashmir (PAJK) and change the nomenclature from governor to sadar-e-riyasat will prove dangerous and are a challenge to national unity and integrity," he said, and added that the question of reviewing the central laws doesn't arise at all. He further said by describing the POJK as PAJK, the interlocutors have questioned the very rationale behind the 1994 unanimous Parliamentary resolution and this was not "acceptable to the nation. The 1994 resolution had described the POJK as an integral part of India and mandated the Government of India to reintegrate those areas with the Indian Jammu & Kashmir. "The PoJK is under the forcible occupation of Pakistan and as per Parliament resolution it is integral part of India," Jaitley said, and added that the interlocutors' recommendations are aimed at "weakening the state's integration with rest of the country and the BJP will allow this to happen come what may".
If what Jaitley said about Nehru, the Congress, Pakistan, Kashmiri separatists and interlocutors cleared many doubts and established that the BJP has deviated from the path charted by BJP veteran and former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, what he said about the founder of Jana Sangh Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, who laid down his life in Kashmir in 1953 for securing the state's integration with India, was no less significant. In fact, he only reiterated that the BJP is committed to follow the Mookerjee's Jammu & Kashmir policy, as the "solution to the present crisis in the state lies in the stand taken by the BJP and the policies adopted by Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee". "Jammu & Kashmir has become an inseparable part of BJP as Dr Mookerjee laid down his life here for total integration of the State with Indian Union. The present crisis in the state is because the policies of Central Government are not consistent with Dr Mookerjee's line on Kashmir," he said to make his point loud and clear, and went on to say that "it was due to the supreme sacrifices of Dr Mookerjee that permit system was abolished" and that "there would have been sadar-e-riyasat instead of governor and wazir-e-azam instead of chief minister in the state, had the then Jana Sangh not taken a principled stand on Jammu & Kashmir''.
All this only serves to prove that the BJP leadership has decided to pursue the policy it used to before 1998 and this augurs well for the future of Jammu & Kashmir. One can only hope and pray that the BJP leadership will stick to what the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha said in Jammu on July 6, the birthday of Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee. (Concluded)
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