J&K: Centre Sets The Ball Rolling
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
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By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2021-06-19 16:50:22
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Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
View all posts by this Author
Finally, the Centre has moved on taking steps to start the political process in Jammu & Kashmir. All 14 top leaders of various political parties in the UT, including Farooq Abdullah of the National Conference (NC) and Mehbooba Mufti of PDP, were today invited by Union home secretary Ajay Bhalla for an all-party meeting with Prime Minister Modi at his residence in Delhi on June 24. The other leaders invited were Muzaffar Hussain Beg and Sajjad Lone of the People's Conference; Mohammed Yusuf Tarigami of the CPM; Nirmal Singh, Kavinder Gupta and Ravinder Raina of the BJP; Altaf Bukhari of the J&K Apni Party; Ghulam Nabi Azad, G A Mir and Tara Chand of the Congress and Bhim Singh of the Panthers Party. All leaders were requested to come with a current Covid negative report.
For the last couple of days, there was a very strong buzz in political circles in the capital about such a development. This gained further currency after Home minister Amit Shah reviewed the situation in the UT on Friday. It is expected that Shah and other Central ministers will also attend the meeting that is expected to discuss the completion of the delimitation exercise and the holding of the assembly elections under the changed equation in the state. This will be the first meeting between the Centre and the leaders from the UT after Article 370 was abrogated on 5th August 2019 and the erstwhile state of Jammu & Kashmir was bifurcated into the UTs of J&K and Ladhakh. Recently, when additional security forces were sent to the state, the valley was abuzz with rumours of another bifurcation of the UT of J&K. The call for this meeting confirms that those rumours were spread by vested interests.
It would be interesting to see how the J&K political parties respond to this invite. At the time of writing this article, there is no word from them except for the NC, the PDP, the Congress and the CPM saying that will discuss the same within their parties before taking a decision. PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti said that the government had not specified a clear agenda while an NC leader said that the meeting shows that there is a realization in Delhi and the meeting is a good thing. But it needs to be remembered that most parties, especially NC and PDP, had said in August 2019 that they do not accept the abrogation and demanded restoration of statehood with special status as before. The mainstream parties also came together to form the People's Alliance for Gupkar Declaration to jointly fight for the same.
It would be sad if the J&K parties choose not to attend the meeting. The UT has been without an elected government for nearly three years now. If the Centre wants to revive the political process, the parties in the UT must come forward and participate in it. It must be recognized that what was done on 5th August 2019 cannot be undone. The political parties in J&K have to come to terms with reality and serve the people under the new scheme of things. The meeting is the first step towards that and they should attend it and put forward their views before the government.
