Srinagar:

National Conference leader Omar Abdullah on Sunday said restoration of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir is not an issue for his party in the Lok Sabha polls, asserting that it will get the statehood anyway in view of commitment by the prime minister and the Union home minister.

Mr Abdullah also said the results of the Lok Sabha polls will have an impact on the upcoming assembly elections in the Union territory.

“Statehood is not an issue for us. Our battle is not for statehood, we will get the statehood anyway. Why should we waste people’s time on an issue that the PM and the home minister are committed to?” Mr Abdullah told reporters in Kupwara district where he was campaigning.

The former chief minister is contesting the Lok Sabha elections from Baramulla which will vote on May 20.

“If this government somehow comes back to power, which seems increasingly impossible now, they are committed to restore statehood to Jammu and Kashmir. If the government changes, which we are hoping for, our effort will be that we get full statehood before the assembly elections take place,” he added.

Speaking in the Rajya Sabha in December last year, Home Minister Amit Shah had assured the country that full statehood would be restored to Jammu and Kashmir at an appropriate time.

Asked about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement on transformation of Jammu and Kashmir after abrogation of Article 370, Mr Abdullah said the BJP should have fielded their own candidates in Kashmir if that were the case.

“If there has been so much (positive) change in J-K, why have they not fielded a party candidate in Kashmir? What is the need for contesting the elections through proxy candidates? They should have fielded their own candidates. Maybe, we would have lost our security deposit. Who would have voted for us when BJP candidates had been there!” he added.

In response to a question, the NC leader said the results of the Lok Sabha elections will have an impact on assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir which are to be held before September 2024 in view of the directions of the Supreme Court.

“There will be an impact on assembly elections because there are not even two months left. This election will finish in June and we are hopeful that in August-September there will be assembly elections,” he said.

The NC leader said the party campaign in the ongoing polls is not focusing on development but the political issue with the Centre.

“We will talk about development but this election is not about development. When we know that within two months assembly elections will happen, the NC manifesto and its candidates will be more focused on development. In this election, we are more focused on the political issue with the Centre,” he added.

On jailed politician Abdul Rashid Sheikh alias Engineer Rashid, Mr Abdullah questioned the justification for keeping the former MLA in jail for so long when the charges have not been framed against him.

“I don’t know if his bail application is pending…if it is not, he should apply for bail. As far as I know, charges have not been framed against him. He has been in jail for a long time now.

“If you have not been able to frame charges against him for so long, then there is no justification to keep him in jail. Everyone knows who is behind Engineer Rashid’s arrest. If the government (at the Centre) changes in June and our government is formed (here) in September, this process of arrests will be ended,” he said.

On speculation that PDP has supported the candidature of Rashid in the Baramulla constituency, Mr Abdullah said the rival party has refuted these claims.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

The people of Jammu and Kashmir after living in a period of normalcy following the scrapping of special status to the erstwhile state feel encouraged to seek a true democracy, Union Minister Jitendra Singh told NDTV in an interview.

Referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s April 12 speech in Udhampur in the Union Territory about restoring statehood and holding a state election, Mr Singh said it is the Opposition’s false portrayal of the ground situation in the border state that is misleading people.

Udhampur, where voting was held on April 19, is Mr Singh’s Lok Sabha constituency.

“Elections had been happening for decades in Jammu and Kashmir, but with a very small voting percentage. It was a travesty of democracy that we had a voting percentage of just about 10 per cent. People would elect MPs and MLAs, particularly from Kashmir valley, and they would go on becoming MPs, MLAs, ministers, generations after generation,” the Union Minister of Science and Technology told NDTV.

“They have now cultivated a vested interest in the continuance of militancy. In the shadow of militancy and terrorism, they can have close elections with a limited voter turnout which would of course be managed by them, and then they would manage their victory, election after election,” Mr Singh said, in what was also seen as taking a swipe at dynastic politics.

The Abdullah family of the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference had been a strong political force in the region.

“Now that it (Jammu and Kashmir) has opened up, I think this is in the true spirit of democracy that we have a huge turnout, which also happened in the District Development Council (DDC) election,” Mr Singh said.

The DDC election was held after the centre in August 2019 scrapped special status to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the Constitution.

“We had a huge voter turnout (DDC elections) even in Kashmir valley. The situation has dramatically turned for the better. The most evident proof of that is the fact that we had more than two crore tourists in Kashmir valley. No tourist would risk their family just by assurance handed out by the government, or by a travel agency unless they get information from their own sources,” Mr Singh said, adding that is what has encouraged and emboldened the common man on the streets of Kashmir valley to come out and aspire for true democracy.

Srinagar:

The Centre is likely to provide a timeframe on restoration of Jammu and Kashmir’s statehood to the Supreme Court today, more than four years after the state was converted into a Union Territory.
Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta will make a statement before a constitution bench of the Supreme Court which is currently hearing a batch of pleas challenging the revocation of Article 370 under which Jammu and Kashmir had a special constitutional status.

On Tuesday, Mr Mehta had told the top court that he will make a “positive statement” on Thursday after he was asked to take instructions from the government and return with a timeframe for restoring the statehood.

“I have taken instructions. The instructions are that Union Territory (of Jammu and Kashmir) is not a permanent feature. I will make a positive statement the day after tomorrow. Ladakh will remain a UT,” he had told the court.

A five-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Of India, DY Chandrachud, is conducting daily hearings of petitions.

In its last hearing on Tuesday, the Supreme Court had laid emphasis on the need to restore democracy in J&K, which has been without an elected government since June 2018.

“Can you convert a State into a UT? And can a UT be carved out of a State. Also, when elections could be held? This has to come an end… give us the specific time frame as to when will you restore actual democracy. We want to record this, ” the court had told Mr Mehta.

The Chief Justice, while acknowledging national security concerns, also insisted on restoration of democracy in the region, which has been directly administered by the central government since 2018.

The attorney general and solicitor general are among the battery of senior lawyers who are defending Centre’s decision while senior advocate Kapil Sibal, Gopal Subramanium, Rajeev Dhavan and several other top lawyers are appearing for the petitioners.

So far, at the heart of the arguments, is if due process was followed while abrogating Article 370 and dividing state into two union territories- J&K and Ladakh.

Leaders and petitioners from Ladakh have expressed their disappointment over The Solicitor General’s statement that Ladakh will remain a Union Territory. Over the last two years, there have been massive protests in Ladakh demanding statehood for the region.

After scrapping Article 370 in August 2019, the Modi government had assured that it will restore statehood at an appropriate time. Home Minister Amit Shah has reiterated the same but no deadline has been set for such a move.