Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, July 25: Working president of JKPCC Raman Bhalla today accused the Centre of snatching the democratic rights for the people of Jammu and Kashmir and said that anti-people decisions aimed at diverting attention from “real” issues.
Bhalla was interacting with prominent persons of Qasim Nagar in Bahu Constituency. He expressed serious concern over the difficulties confronting the people in the absence of a democratic system in J&K while slamming the Government for snatching the rights of people.
He said J&K was divided into two Union Territories against the wishes of the people and they were now being denied their democratic rights by “the BJP aiming to hide its wrong policies and utter failure”. The Congress shall continue to fight for the democratic rights of the people and ensure justice, he said.
Bhalla hailed reserving two seats for Kashmiri Migrant community in Assembly and also backed the demand for more reserved J&K Assembly seats for Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK) refugees. Referring to the demand for defreezing of 1/3rd assembly seats out of 24 seats for PoJK, Bhalla demanded appropriate amendments in law to allocate seats proportional to the displaced population, who survived to cross over to this side and let them elect their real representatives. Allocating two /three seats by way of nomination, as being suggested, would result in great injustice to the large displaced community from Mirpur, Poonch and Muzzfrabad, he added.
Cong leader NC Bhalla stated that Sikhs form a patriotic and nationalistic community having a history of sacrifices for humanity and in safeguarding the sovereignty, integrity and unity of India. “Sikhs are today feeling helpless in absence of any political representation for them in J&K,” he maintained quoting the census 2011 to say that Sikhs constitute almost 2 per cent of the total population of J&K which at present might be somewhere between 2.5 to 3 lakh. Citing recent reports of Delimitation Commission, Bhalla said that Congress wants political reservation to minority Sikh community in J&K.
Bhalla also supported Pahari-speaking people demand of Scheduled Tribe (ST) status and political reservation living in different parts of Jammu District. He has questioned the denial of Pahari status & benefits of reservation to a section of displaced Pahari community from POJK, settled in few pockets Jammu province, other than in Poonch – Rajouri districts and termed it a great injustice with them besides seeking 1/3rd share for them in the, 24 assembly seats reserved for POJK.
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