JAMMU: Union Minister Dr. Jitendra Singh today accused Congress and National Conference of manipulating Jammu & Kashmir Legislative Assembly to a 6 year term by using the alibi of Article 370. For the first time after nearly 50 years, said the Union Minister, the tenure of the Jammu & Kashmir Legislative Assembly will be of five years instead of six years. “The previous rulers, under the pretext of Article 370, kept the tenure of the assembly at six years. When Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister, introduced an amendment during the emergency in 1975 and extended the term of the assemblies and parliament to six years. The NC, which was ruling in J-K with the support of the Congress, adopted the resolution without any second thought. “However, when the Janata Party government revoked the amendment three years later, the NC-Congress government used Article 370 to continue the six year rule. This is how Article 370 was being abused by the political dynasts for their own benefit. Article 370 was no benefit to the people,” he said. The Union Minister was talking to reporters after casting his vote in the third and final phase of assembly elections at Trikuta Nagar polling station here this morning. The minister was accompanied by his wife and son. Dr Jitendra Singh said, the enthusiastic participation of people in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly polls reflects the success of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s policies and “true mainstreaming” of democracy in the Union territory. “I want to thank Prime Minister Modi, the BJP’s leadership”, said Dr Jitendra Singh. The festival of democracy is being celebrated, happiness is palpable. This is the first election , said Dr Jitendra Singh, when there was no call for strike from Pakistan, no 8-10 pc voting like it used to be either… The refugees who came from Pakistan were not very favourably disposed towards Congress, they held Congress responsible for partition, partition was one of the biggest miscarriages, they attributed it to personal ambition of Nehru and Jinnah. They were kept away from voting rights, but they gave two PMs, Manmohan Singh and IK Gujral, Article 370 was misused, the lotus will bloom here,” He also accused previous regimes, especially of the National Conference and Congress, of misusing Article 370 by depriving West Pakistani refugees, Valmiki Samaj and Gorkha community of their “citizenship and voting rights”. The senior BJP leader said people are coming out to vote in large numbers like any other part of the country. “You should appreciate that this is the first election happening in J-K in the past 35 years where there is no strike call from Pakistan, no boycott campaign run by separatists, no separatist slogan…this is why I am terming this election as true mainstreaming of democracy,” said Dr Jitendra Singh. “The credit goes to Modi for holding urban local bodies, panchayats, including the first of its kind District Development Council (DDC) elections, and implementing the 73, 74 amendment of Panchayati Raj Act to benefit the people of the double-engine government,” he said. Asked about the West Pakistani, Valmiki, and Gorkha community populations getting voting rights after a long wait of seven decades, he said the injustice with these communities was also another example of the misuse of Article 370 and Article 35A by the previous governments. “Even if you go abroad, you are getting citizenship rights after 10 years, but the community that gave India two prime ministers-Manmohan Singh and I K Gujaral-were deprived of citizenship and voting rights for settling in J-K after partition,” he said. “Partition was miscarriage in recent history, and they always attributed it to the personal ambitions of (Pandit Jawahar Lal) Nehru and (Muhammad Ali) Jinnah. They were denied citizenship and voting rights under the garb of article 370 and 35A, even though we have two prime ministers from their community. “This again reflected that this (Article 370) was misused and abused by those who were vociferous votaries of it, even as it never helped the common man-whether in Jammu or Srinagar. The people in Srinagar within their hearts approved its abrogation as well,” he said.
