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Former union minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram has lambasted the BJP for abrogation of Article 370, saying the saffron party would not have “snatched away” the special status had Jammu and Kashmir been a Hindu-dominated state.
Alleging that BJP revoked the Article with its “muscle power”, he said the situation in Jammu and Kashmir was unstable and that international news agencies were covering the unrest, but not Indian media houses.
“…They (BJP) claim Kashmir is stable. Is it? Does it mean stable if Indian media houses don’t cover the unrest in J&K?”
He also took potshots at seven regional parties ruling in seven states, saying they did not cooperate against the BJP’s move in the Rajya Sabha out of “fear”.
Chidambaram said that in the 70-year history of the nation, there has never been an example of a state being reduced to a Union Territory and it has always been the converse.
“Today, Jammu and Kashmir has been turned into a municipality…There are special provisions for other states under Article 371, why only J and K…This is because of religious fanaticism.
If J&K was a Hindu dominated state, BJP would not have done this. They did it only because the region is dominated by Muslims,” the former union minister alleged.
“BJP is bragging of integrating Kashmir with muscle power,” he added.
Emphasising that there was never a conflict between former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and former home minister Sardar Vallabhai Patel, Chidambaram said, “Patel was never an RSS functionary. They (BJP) don’t have any leader, they are stealing our leader. No matter who steals, history doesn’t forget to whom the product belongs.”
