Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, Aug 11: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will chair first high level All Party Meeting (APM) on Kashmir situation at Parliament House around noon tomorrow to evolve consensus among the nation on ways and means to deal with ongoing unrest in the Kashmir valley that today entered into 34th day having taken 56 lives and left over 6000 injured including several para-military and police personnel.
In fact, this is the first All Party Meeting on Kashmir after 2010 unrest in the Valley, which had led to appointment of three-member Interlocutors on J&K including Dileep Padgaonkar, Prof Radha Kumar and MM Ansari though their report never saw light of the day.
Official sources told the Excelsior that with a view to have broader consensus in the entire country over Kashmir situation, the Union Home Ministry headed by Rajnath Singh, which has convened the All Party Meeting, has sent invitation to all political parties having presence in Parliament including the smaller groups, which have two to three MPs for tomorrow’s meeting to be chaired by the Prime Minister himself.
The meeting has been scheduled for 12 noon in the Parliament House tomorrow, which is also last day of Monsoon session of the Parliament. The exact timing of the start of the meeting would depend upon adjournment of both Houses of the Legislature. The meeting could run into two to three hours, going by the large participation of the political parties in the meeting, sources said.
Apart from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Mini-ster Rajnath Singh, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) Dr Jitendra Singh would represent the Govern-ment in the meeting while Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha and Congress veteran Ghulam Nabi Azad and Congress leader in Lok Sabha, Malikaarjun Kharge would represent the main opposition party.
Of two main regional political parties in Jammu and Kashmir, National Conference has no presence in either House of the Parliament while People’s Democratic Party (PDP), which is coalition partner of BJP in J&K, could nominate veteran Parliamentarian Muzaffar Hussain Baig, party MP from Baramulla-Kupwara Lok Sabha seat, for the All Party Meeting. The PDP has four MPs—two each in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha after the resignation of Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti from Anantnag Lok Sabha seat.
About 25 political leaders of various political parties in the country were likely to attend the meeting while major political parties will have two representatives in the meeting, the smaller groups will have one.
Noting that the Government of India wants to ensure larger participation in the meeting, they said: “it was in this context that all political parties even those whose base was confined to South, North East or Western parts of the country have also been invited to the meeting. Even smaller groups with two to three MPs have also been called”.
According to sources, the Prime Minister and the Home Minister would like to elicit opinion of all major recognized political parties of the country on Kashmir unrest before initiating further steps to defuse the tension, which was going on for past 34 days with curfew and shutdown having become order of the day.
According to sources, depending upon the consensus, which is likely, the All Party Meeting could pass unanimous resolution condemning Pakistan role to foment trouble in Kashmir, which has become more evident from the statement of captured Pakistani terrorist from Kashmir, Bahadur Ali.
Admitting that use of pellet guns in the Kashmir valley could be raised by most of the opposition parties especially the Congress, sources said the Home Minister as well as the CRPF Director General have already made it clear that the pellet guns were being used only in “rarest of rare circumstances” to quell the violent protests in the Valley.
The All Party Meeting was likely to discuss on whether to send an All Party delegation to Jammu and Kashmir to have views of all shades of opinion. The decision could be taken depending on assessment of the situation prevailing in the Valley.
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