New Delhi: Urging Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre to first grant statehood to Jammu and Kashmir and then conduct the polls, Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad on Sunday said “don’t make the mistake of carrying out delimitation first and then giving statehood”.
The Congress leader said the politicians from Jammu and Kashmir had earlier during their meeting with Prime Minister Modi demanded statehood followed by the elections.
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“When Prime Minister Narendra Modi invited political leaders from Kashmir to his residence, I demanded that we would like to have statehood followed by elections. Other parties also demanded. I told the PM and Home Minister that the state shouldn't have been divided into two in the first place,” Azad said.
“Our demand remains that first statehood should be granted and that should be followed by elections,” he added.
Asserting that Jammu and Kashmir was better off as a state with different chief ministers before the abrogation of Article 370, the Congress leader said the state had lost a great lot since its division.
“We were told that the scene in Jammu and Kashmir will change after the abrogation of Article 370. Growth, hospitals, unemployment will be taken care of. But that has not happened at all,” Azad said.
“So, we are a great loser. We have been a great loser after the state’s division into two parts. We have been a great loser ever since the Assembly was dissolved,” he added.
Echoing similar sentiments, National Conference chief Farooq Abdullah also lashed out at the ruling dispensation and said the Centre has been “dishonest” with Jammu and Kashmir.
“It scrapped Articles 370 and 35A and made the region a Union Territory,” the former chief minister said, adding the National Conference will restore Articles 370 and 35A if brought to power.
The remarks of the two leaders came a day after Union Home Minister Amit Shah said Jammu and Kashmir’s statehood will be restored after the delimitation process and elections in the region.
“Delimitation will happen, followed by elections and then restoration of statehood...I want to be friends with the Kashmiri youth,” he said at an event in Srinagar earlier on Saturday.
Taking potshots at the political leaders in the valley, Shah said the abrogation of Article 370 from the erstwhile state has brought democracy to grassroots level, which was earlier restricted to a few families.
The Home Minister is currently on a three-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir. This is his first visit to the valley since Article 370 was revoked earlier in August 2019.