File Picture Courtesy : Deccan Chronicle
BJP president Amit Shah has squarely blamed “pressure groups” in Jammu and Kashmir for stalling his party’s efforts for an equitable growth in all three regions of the state and cited worsening law and order situation in the Valley for its decision to walk out of the PDP-led government.
In his first comments following the break-up of the PDP-BJP alliance on Tuesday, he also claimed that the decision to withdraw support was not taken keeping in mind the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
If that was the case, then it would have been done six months later, Shah said told Zee News in an interview.
He said that there was little development on the efforts to provide relief and rehabilitation to Kashmiri Pandits and those who had arrived in the state from Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir, among other issues, despite funds being sent to the state government.
“But these things did not see progress. How long we could have waited. I don’t think that Mehbooba Mufti’s intentions were not there but various kinds of pressure groups had cropped up who broke the dream of a balanced development,” the BJP chief said.
“The balance in development which should have been there among the three regions of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh did not happen and there was also this (worsening) law and order situation,” he said, citing the reasons behind his party’s decision.
He defended the BJP’s decision to join hands with the PDP in 2015, saying the fractured mandate did not give any other option. “Not doing an experiment thinking that it will not succeed is not progressive politics,” he said.
People were happy when the BJP joined hands with the PDP to form the government and they are happy now over the decision to withdraw support, he said.
The BJP’s stand on Kashmir remains what it always was but the alliance was formed on the agenda of development, he said.
