Autonomy, self-rule two sides of same coin: Jugal

Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Dec 19: BJP State president Jugal Kishore Sharma today accused the NC, Congress and PDP of ignoring issues of public importance and raking up emotive and divisive issues for vote-bank politics.
Addressing a gathering of local people of Nagrota town he said that the NC’s autonomy concept and the PDP’s self-rule doctrine are two sides of the same coin.
He urged the party leaders and cadres across the State to educate the public opinion by exposing the divisive ideologies of NC and PDP and Congress’s support for an equally divisive 1975 Indira-Sheikh Abdullah accord and the acts of omission and commission committed by the ruling coalition and their failure to deliver on any front.
BJP State president rejected the suggestions of NC and PDP that their respective demands would end unrest in the Valley and resolve regional tensions in the State and added that these demands, if accepted, would not undo what the Indian nation did in the State during the past 65 years and only also provoke protests in Jammu and Ladakh and in the refugee camps.
“Greater autonomy concept and self-rule doctrine are fundamentally bad, reactionary, retrograde and highly injurious to the vital interests of India and its people in Jammu & Kashmir. They are nothing but a replica of the two-nation theory that resulted in the partition of India in 1947 and consumed millions of lives. The BJP will defeat their demands,” said Mr Sharma.
Greater autonomy concept, like the self-rule doctrine of the PDP, is another charter of bondage for the people of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh, he said, adding that it also means recognition of communalism and extremism, great concessions to terrorists and Pakistan and emergence of a system under which New Delhi will have no power whatsoever in the State of Jammu & Kashmir.
Earlier, Sharma visited Kol Kandoli Mandir in the morning to inspect the ongoing work of construction of a shed for the convenience of visiting pilgrims and also announced release of Rs. 1 lakh in addition to Rs. 3 lakh earlier given for the purpose. He also sanctioned Rs. 5 lakh for undertaking other works in Nagrota town related to development, laying / repairing of water pipes and fixing electric supply wires on poles.