Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday told the Lok Sabha and later the Rajya Sabha, that the Centre was dissatisfied with the explanation that it had sought and received from the Jammu and Kashmir government on the release of separatist leader Masarat Alam.
The State government has told the Centre that Mr. Alam’s release followed a court order, and that he could not be sent back to jail without fresh cases being filed against him. “We have sought further clarifications. Once we receive them, we can come back to Parliament with them,” Mr. Singh said.
The Home Minister also acknowledged that his party had “ideological differences” with the PDP and asserted that “nobody, howsoever powerful”, will be allowed to play with national unity, an assertion the Prime Minister repeated, even as the latter said the BJP did not need to learn lessons in patriotism from the opposition.
If in the Lok Sabha, Congress leader Mallikarjuna Kharge said that if the Chief Minister was acting unilaterally then the BJP should withdraw its support to ensure the unity of the nation, Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad expressed dissatisfaction with Mr. Modi for not making a statement on the Masarat Alam issue in the Upper House as he did in the Lok Sabha.
“The Prime Minister came to this House but did not speak here. It has never happened that on a particular subject, he speaks in the other House but does not speak here despite being present here,” the Minister said.
The AIADMK’s A. Navaneethakrishnan, demanding fresh elections in the State, said, “He [Mufti] is unfit to be the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir .. The BJP has said that the reply given by the State government is not satisfactory, it is high time the BJP came out of the coalition government and ordered fresh elections.”
“Hidden agenda”
Opposition MPs also raised questions on whether there was a “hidden agenda” that the BJP-PDP coalition has not yet made public.
(With additional inputs from Smriti Kak Ramachandran)
