New J&K order: BSP backs move, Samajwadi Party questions it

“You could have just scrapped Article 370, why was it necessary to make it a Union Territory... why did you abolish statehood,” SP leader Ram Gopal Yadav said.

Article 370, Article 370 scrapped, Kashmir, Kashmir special status, Amit Shah, Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Bill, Farooq Abdullah, Narendra Modi, Mehbooba Mufti, Indian Express

“You could have just scrapped Article 370, why was it necessary to make it a Union Territory… why did you abolish statehood,” SP leader Ram Gopal Yadav said. (Express photo by Ravi Kanojia)

WHILE THE BSP declared its support, the SP opposed the government’s decision. “You could have just scrapped Article 370, why was it necessary to make it a Union Territory… why did you abolish statehood,” SP leader Ram Gopal Yadav said.

“I know that you do not care if people live or die in Kashmir, you only care about boasting in the rest of the country that you have removed Article 370,” he said. He mentioned the problems faced by the Delhi government and the Puducherry government with their respective Lieutenant Governors.

“Article 370 is part of the Constitution,” he said, adding that “a Constitutional amendment is needed” to amend it. He said it cannot be removed by a resolution.

He accused the government of creating an atmosphere of fear in the state. Had the government taken “Kashmir’s political parties and political representatives into confidence”, it would not have led to doubts in people’s minds, he said.

Explaining the BSP’s decision to back the government’s move, BSP leader Satish Chandra Mishra said the “minority Muslim community does not only live in J&K”. There are more Muslims in the rest of India than in J&K, he said, and added that their right to buy property in the state had been “snatched till now”.

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