The first session of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly which began on Monday it after six years was disrupted after PDP MLA Waheed Para moved a resolution against lifting the special status of J&K and demanding the restoration of Article 370.
Pulwama assembly seat applicant, Para, presented the resolution to the newly elected speaker Abdul Rahim Rather and urged the house to take up the issue during the five day session even though it was not listed on the list of agenda.
“While we know that the agenda of the House has been determined for today, we understand that your prerogative as the Speaker of this House affords us the chance to pass the resolution in the spirit of the BASK at large,” it said.
Soon after the resolution was moved, all the 28 Jammu and Kashmir BJP MLAs rose in protest against the move and the House was turmoil with noise.
BJP MLA Sham Lal Sharma asked for Para’s suspension for moving the resolution in A assembly rules.
The Speaker insistently asked the protesting members to return to their seats, but they intensified their protest. He said that the resolution has not reached him and when it does, he would go through it.
Since the BJP members are not ready to withdraw from their protest,National Conference MLAs criticized them for videotaping the proceedings of the house.
Speaking at the session, the Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said that the resolution is not serious and it is just for the cameras.
The way House will deliberate and weigh on this (matter) will not be in the making of any one member. They would have talked all this to us if there was a purpose behind it (resolution), he said.
The Chief Minister also said that the people of Jammu and Kashmir are against the decision made on August 5th, 2019, which involved the scrapping of Article 370.
In turn, Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha said that his government will strive towards the restoration of full statehood for the region. ”This change would be a reciprocation of the faith reposed by the people of Jammu & Kashmir in our democratic institutions,” he added.
PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti said she was ‘proud’ of Waheed Para for moving the resolution.
‘‘Blessed to have Waheed Parra for bringing a resolution in the JK Assembly against the abrogation of Article 370 and to bring back the state’s special status. God bless you,” she tweeted.
Article 370 was a constitutional provision which provided state subject rights to the people of Jammu and Kashmir. It let the state to have their constitution, flag, and most of the say in internal affairs provided they had to seek the union’s permission on issues concerning defense, communication and foreign policy.
On August 5, 2019, the Centre revoked Article 370, effectively removing the special status of Jammu and Kashmir and reorganising it into two Union Territories: Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah predicted it would be foolhardy to expect the BJP to revisit Article 370 decision and further said, “The truth is that people of J&K do not endorse the decision made on August 5, 2019. If they had approved, then the results today would have been a different story.”
How the House will reflect and discuss this will not be decided by any one member of the House, the baby was dumped on the doorstep of this House and if it is acceptable for this House to keep dumping babies on doorsteps, then, the House must accept that one day, their children will be dumped on the doorstep of the future.. This resolution brought today has no significance but the cameras are being captured. There wouldn’t be a purpose behind all of this if they had not wanted to talk to us about it first…”
The centre, under BJP, abrogated Article 370 five years back, in a protest stir political activists and politicians in Jammu and the kashmir valley. The revocation was contested in the Supreme Court that in December last year ruled the provision a “temporary” one.
Article 370 had granted some special status and rights to Jammu and Kashmir. After stripping it of its special status the central government also bifurcated the former state into two union territories: J&K UT and Ladakh UT.
The restoration of the special status of Article 370 was at the core of the campaign ahead of last month’s election wherein the people of J&K voted for the first time in a decade due to the collapse of the PDP-BJP alliance, the subsequent imposition of President’s Rule.
The ruling alliance led by the NC-Congress emerged victorious in the October 8 election; need be remembered though the NC in particular did not need the support it secured all 42 of the elected 90 seats in J&K apart from support from four independents and the lone AAP representative to garner the requisite 48 for a majority.
But a day after the verdict, the chief minister-elect Omar Abdullah said it would be ‘foolish’ to expect the Article 370 to be returned by ‘them who removed it’. However, Mr Abdullah affirmed that the same would not change on the part of the Nepali Congress. It should be noted we have never claimed that we will not speak on Article 370 or that to us Article 370 is not a subject of discussion anymore… he told reporters.
‘We would keep on discussing this and hope there will be a change of government tomorrow and there will be a new set up with whom we can talk and get something for J&K’.
He has, though, said the election result was a clear rejection of the scrapping of Article 370.
The NC leader, however, did call on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP-led alliance at the centre to restore J&K’s statehood, a promise Mr Modi made in the run-up to the election.
In a push for what the Chief Minister and the new government feel is the more achievable objective, the new J&K Cabinet, on October 18, passed a resolution for restoration of statehood.
This resolution also reiterated the commitment of the new J&K government to protect the identity and constitutional rights of the people of the former state, whose residents enjoyed special rights, including regarding land ownership and job privileges, under Article 370.
And, two weeks ago, Mr Abdullah met Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Delhi to initiate the dialogue regarding statehood. Sources said Mr Shah threw his full weight behind J&K in reclaiming its status of a state.
Since Mr Abdullah assumed the office of the Chief Minister, he made it clear that he did not want the engagement with the central government to be an adversarial one either as this had already pushed the development work in J&K back by a century.
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