Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Jan 15: Entire National Conference led by former Chief Minister and party’s working president Omar Abdullah today staged a walk-out in the Legislative Assembly during Question Hour seeking statement from the Government on Army chief Gen Bipin Rawat’s recent remarks on Kashmir. Click here to watch video
The Government, however, didn’t react.
As soon as proceedings of the House began, National Conference MLA and former Minister Ali Mohammad Sagar was on his feet referring to Gen Rawat’s statement that operations will be shifted to North Kashmir and that separate maps in Government schools of the Valley were cause of concern.
“There could have been an adjournment motion on the issue but we just want Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti or any of the Government representatives to react. On the one side, the Government has been claiming that peace is returning to the Valley while on the other side, situation seems to be deteriorating.
“You want to convert North Kashmir and Central Kashmir into South Kashmir. Cordon and Search Operations have been introduced in Srinagar City after 17 years. Whether this indicates improvement or deterioration in the situation”?, Sagar asked.
On yesterday’s statement of the Chief Minister that there should have been Government hospitals and bunkers instead of bunkers on the LoC, Sagar wanted to know: “who is calling shots in Jammu and Kashmir–Centre or the State?”
CPM member MY Tarigami also joined the issue describing it as “serious matter”.
“The Government should respond to the emerging situation. On the one hand, the Government has been talking of holding Panchayat elections and restoration of normalcy in the Valley while, on the other, the Army chief, for two consecutive days, has given statements.
“The political and military approach, envisaged by the Army chief should be clarified. What does they mean? We should be taken into confidence. The Chief Minister should come to the House and brief us,” Tarigami said.
However, as Speaker Kavinder Gupta started the Question Hour, the National Conference MLAs protested on their seats. Omar Abdullah remained on his seat.
Later, all National Conference members led by Omar Abdullah staged a walk-out in the Assembly. While Omar silently left the House and didn’t speak to media outside, other NC members staged walk-out shouting slogans ‘Nagpur Sarkar, RSS Sarkar, PDP Sarkar and BJP Sarkar Hai Hai”.
After the Walk-out, Omar tweeted: “crackdown returns to Srinagar, another achievement of the Mufti Government.”
The Congress members didn’t react on the Army chief’s statement and remained silent during protests by the National Conference members.
The Question Hour remained disrupted for about 10 minutes due to uproar created by the NC MLAs. However, the Question Hour proceeded smoothly after walk-out by the NC members.
The treasury benches didn’t respond to the National Conference protests and remained silent.
Speaking to reporters outside, former Speaker and National Conference MLA Mohammad Akbar Lone didn’t agree with the Army chief’s statement on educational institutions of the Valley. He justified the stand taken by Education Minister Syed Altaf Bukhari.
“The Education Minister has rightly said that educational institutions fall under domain of the State Government and it was not task of the Army chief to interfere in them,” Lone said, adding that the Army chief should focus on the borders and leave other affairs to the Centre and State Governments.
Sagar also justified the stand taken by the Education Minister on the issue.
“The Army should fight on the borders and not interfere in working of the schools,” he said.
It may be mentioned here that Army chief Gen Bipin Rawat had stated that “seeds of separatism were being sown in the Government schools where students are taught about separate map of Jammu and Kashmir”.
However, BJP MLA from Nowshera Ravinder Raina strongly defended statement of the Army chief.
“Here only nationalist voices will prevail. Some of the Opposition members are irritated and are sympathizing with the militants,” Raina told reporters.
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