Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Dec 2: Accusing Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah of distorting facts to mislead his constituency and hoodwink general masses, BJP State president, Jugal Kishore Sharma today accepted Chief Minister’s challenge to hold debate on Article 370.
Sharma along with BJP Legislative Party Leader Ashok Khajuria, general secretary, Kavinder Gupta, senior leader Prof Hari Om and State secretary, Pawan Khajuria told reporters here that both Congress and NC have consistently misused Article 370. The refugees from West Pakistan could not obtain citizenship rights and Supreme Court of India in1980s regretted that it is because of the State’s special status that it could not dispose of writ petition in their favour, he added.
He asked Mr Abdullah and other such table-rousers in the State to go through the Supreme Court judgment to update their knowledge.
The BJP State president debunked Mr Abdullah’s attack on party’s PM nominee Narendra Modi that he made a false statement that under Article 370 women in the State did not have the same rights as men have saying the C M is ignorant of the role the BJP played in 2004 and 2005 to ensure gender equality.
He said it was the BJP that approached the State High Court in 2004 and 2005 to secure gender equality by seeking its indulgence to abolish the practice of making an endorsement of ‘valid till marriage’ and the HC upheld the BJP pro gender view. Later in August 2005 the then PDP-Congress coalition informed the HC that it would implement the order in letter and spirit, Mr Sharma added.
Maintaining that BJP was quite satisfied with the judgment, he said the party wanted a regime that would entitle the children of the daughters of the state married outside to enjoy all citizenship rights available to the residents of the State and party’s struggle to achieve this goes on unabated.
The BJP leader also pooh-poohed Omar Abdullah’s untenable assertion that Article 370 had nothing to do with State Subject laws. He also took Union Information and Broadcasting Minister, Manish Tiwari and the PDP leadership to task and held them, like the NC, responsible for all the troubles facing the people in the State.
He, while ridiculing Mr Tiwari’s statement that Mr Modi’s demand for abrogation of Article 370 can pose a threat to the unity and integrity of the country and lead to growth of communalism, said it is in fact the Congress and parties like the NC, which have all along subverted the polity both from within and without exploiting Article 370 for vote bank politics.
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