BJP to hold talks with Pak if elected

JAMMU, Dec 29: If the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) comes to power in the Centre, it has promised to solve the long-pending and vexed Kashmir...

JAMMU, Dec 29: If the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) comes to power in the Centre, it has promised to solve the long-pending and vexed Kashmir issue on priority.

Announcing this at a press conference here today, the party’s national vice-president Krishan Lal Sharma said a stable BJP government would hold talks with Pakistan over the issue in clear terms. He held both the Congress and the United Front governments responsible for the Kashmir problem. Instead of finding a solution to the problem, they made it more vexed, he said.

The BJP leader said that though the party has decided to contest all the six Lok Sabha seats in the state, it was open to seat adjustment with any party in the Kashmir Valley. However, the party will contest both the seats in Jammu region, he added.

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Sharma also said that it would be a challenge to the Election Commission (EC) to ensure free and fair elections in the state. Pointing out that the participation of the Kashmiri migrants during the last elections was not ensured in the right perspective, he asked the EC to ensure that their votes were not rigged this time.

However, when asked about the migrants’ demand for a separate homeland within the Valley, the BJP leader said “we want to make them realise the entire nation is their homeland”.

The party started its election campaign on December 26 and its Central Election Committee will meet at Delhi on January 10 and 11 to finalise the names of about 50 per cent of its candidates for the ensuing Lok Sabha elections in the country, the BJP leader said.

India needs a stable and strong government to undo the wrongs done by the Congress and the United Front Governments to the nation on all fronts, especially on the economic one, he added.

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When asked about the BJP’s poll prospects during the Lok Sabha elections, Sharma said it would a stronger BJP wave this time than it was during 1977 as the entire South had then gone with the Congress.

“This time, the people know that the Congress and the United Front only wanted to stop Bharatiya Janata Party from coming to power,” he said.

“The fragmented United Front and the disintegrated Congress cannot give a stable government to the country,” Sharma said.

He attributed the fall of the UF Government to the fact that the Congress and Communist Party (Marxist) were insistent on not joining it.