Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Feb 25: Taking serious exception to the statement of the former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah that the accession of the State of Jammu and Kashmir to Indian Union was conditional, the former Union Minister, Prof Chaman Lal Gupta, asserted that Maharaja Hari Singh of the State had signed the same Instrument of Accession (IoA) which was signed by over 555 Rajas and Nawabs of the country.
“This act of the Maharaja was legal and final. The conditions, if any other was attached, were not having any legal sanctity and were only whimsical”, he added.
Prof Gupta also pointed out that Omar and his father were under oath of the Constitution, under which J&K State is an integral and irrevocable part of Indian Union.
He alleged that such like controversial statements are being aired under a design to encourage secessionism and elements who are indulging in acts of glorifying the terrorists and sub-version.
Ridiculing the demand for restoration of pre-1953 status of the State, Prof Gupta observed that NC had lost the moral authority to raise such issues, when Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah had resumed the power as Chief Minister of the State in wake of Indira – Sheikh Accord of 1975. He said that thereafter Sheikh’s Deputy and legal luminary, DD Thakur, had in his detailed report observed that all the Central laws extended to J&K between 1953 and 1975, were beneficial to the people of this State but even after this report, Sheikh Abdullah did not rake this issue till his death in 1982.
Prof Gupta also pointed out that in 2001 the Central Government had out-rightly rejected the so-called Autonomy Report of the State, when NC was part and parcel of the NDA Government at the Centre.
He said that all such controversial statements and demands being raised should be snubbed by the nationalists to nip the evil before it is late.
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