As the Lok Sabha on Tuesday passed the resolution abrogating Article 370, Jammu and Kashmir Assembly Speaker Nirmal Singh removed the state flag from his official car. With this, Singh becomes the first Constitutional functionary to remove state flag from his official vehicle. Singh, a senior BJP leader, said, “When we were in government (the PDP-BJP coalition government headed first by the late Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, and later by his daughter Mehbooba Mufti), we had to fly the state flag with a heavy heart as it was our constitutional compulsion.” He said the passage of the Bills on Jammu and Kashmir in Parliament is the culmination of the “70-year-old dream of (BJP ideologue) Shyama Prasad Mookerjee and (Praja Parishad leader) Pt. Prem Nath Dogra”, crediting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah for the same. Explained | With Jammu & Kashmir’s special status scrapped, the flag it no longer has He said, “Whenever the government notification in the matter comes, I have decided not to fly national flag on my official vehicle.” Meanwhile, Government sources said that after the abrogation of Article 370, the state flag has become a ‘non-entity’. However, it will only be removed from official vehicles after a official notification is issued in the matter.
