Hyderabad: MIM president Asaduddin Owaisi launched a powerful attack against the Narendra Modi government over revocation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, and said “this move is the third historic mistake made by the country.”
Participating in a debate on the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Bill in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, Mr Owaisi said the first mistake was committed in 1953 by arresting the former Chief Minister of J&K Sheikh Abdullah. The second mistake was rigging the election of 1987 in J&K and this is the third one.
He said, “definitely the BJP has lived up to its electoral promises made in its manifesto, but you have not lived up to your constitutional duties. You have indulged in breach of constitutional promise. I must congratulate the Home Minister for the fiery victory in eviscerating Article 370.”
He said in one stroke the Union government has effaced the Sarkaria Commi-ssion, the Administrative Reforms Commission and Rajmannar Commission. “You have definitely taken this dishonourable decision as an authoritarian State.”
Mr Owaisi asked whether the Government is planning to get people from outside the state to settle in Kashmir as the Israelis did, “or are you imitating the Chinese or trying to create a Bantustan as in apartheid South Africa?”
Contradicting home minister Amit Shah who said on Monday that Article 370 was temporary, he said that the Supreme Court has said in two judgments that Article 370 is not temporary, it is a special status. He said people of Jammu and Kashmir are fighting for their democratic rights. He alleged that the government is going to hand over the whole region of the North-East to the corporate world.
Mr Owaisi said BJP MPs are saying this is Diwali, so then “why can’t you release all Kashmiris, let them come out and celebrate?”
