Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati on Monday questioned the visit by Opposition leaders led by former Congress president Rahul Gandhi to Jammu and Kashmir, saying it would provide the Centre and the Governor an opportunity to politicise the issue.
Mr. Gandhi and other leaders landed in Srinagar on Saturday and sent back to Delhi from the airport.
They should have waited for the situation in Kashmir to become normal before making a visit. It would take time for things to turn normal after the scrapping of special status granted by Article 370, said the former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister.
“It is better to wait a bit. Even the honourable court has opined that. In such a situation, leaders of the Congress and other parties going to Kashmir without permission would provide the Centre and the Governor an opportunity to do politics,” she said.
The BSP chief also reiterated her party’s stand to support the Centre on scrapping the special status to J&K, saying it was because of Bhimrao Ambedkar’s stand on the issue.
“It is well known that Babasaheb Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar was always in favour of the country’s equality, unity and integration. For this reason, he was not at all in favour of a separate Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir State,” she said, adding that it was due to this “special reason” that the BSP supported the scrapping of Article 370 in Parliament.
Akhilesh’s warning
Hours after Ms. Mayawati’s comments, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav questioned the restrictions imposed on the residents of J&K.“What's happened to them [people of Jammu and Kashmir] today, will happen to you and me tomorrow,” he said.
People of J&K had been “imprisoned in their homes” for more than 20 days. “Are the people there happy? If this was such a good decision, why wasn’t it taken after consulting the people,” he asked.
Mr. Yadav, however, continued to press charges against the BJP government.
When journalists asked him if he thought pressure by the Enforcement Directorate (in connection with corruption charges against Mr. Mayawati’s brother Anand Kumar) was behind her stance on Article 370, he said agencies like the ED and CBI had become “new institutions” under the BJP. The BJP wanted to do politics with hate and fear. “One should learn how to do institutional control from the BJP. No political party that formed a government had done it earlier.” This was the “new democracy of new India.”
Sandeep Phukan reports from New Delhi:
Governor’s invitation
Opposition members who were part of the delegation told The Hindu they had gone to J&K on the invitation of Governor Satya Pal Malik and were “well know leaders of responsible political parties”.
CPI general secretary D Raja said, “Our visit was on the public invitation of the Governor. Ambedkar is being misquoted. He opposed the concept of Hindu Rashtra but didn’t oppose Article 370. As chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Constitution, if he had opposed strongly, it wouldn’t have found a place”.
Majeed memon of the NCP said, “The claim of the government that we are gradually limping to normalcy need to be verified by the Opposition leaders...Even till this hour, educational institutions remain shut, tourists are forbidden, telephone connections are severed and curfew is continuing in a lot of areas.”
Ms. Mayawati, in a tweet, however, attacked the Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government of Uttar Pradesh over law and order. “All previous governments as well as the present government, barring the BSP government in Uttar Pradesh, are alike specially on the issue of law and order. It was ‘jungle raj’ of halla bol [a referrence to musclemen politics]earlier and now it is 'jungle raj' of mob lynching,” she said.
