New Delhi, June 17: Seeking restoration of statehood and installation of a democratically elected government in Jammu and Kashmir, former minister and National Panthers Party (NPP) president Harsh Dev Singh on Saturday said the present BJP regime had caused “huge resentment” in the hearts and minds of the people of the UT through its “weird experimentation”.
“With its statehood status robbed and elections denied, J&K was made to bleed by the saffron rulers quite unmindful of the sentiments of its people,” he said while addressing a seminar organised by the “Centre for Peace and Progress” at India International Centre, New Delhi.
Speaking on the occasion, Harsh Dev said the abrogation of Article-370 was not a demotion of the erstwhile State only “but every sensible citizen felt downgraded and humiliated”. “It had deeply hurt the sentiments of the people of J&K who felt belittled and demoted,” he said.
Alleging subversion of democracy and denial of popular government in J&K, Singh said, “The BJP-led government was inventing one excuse after the other to deny democratic rights to the people of the erstwhile State and to continue its proxy rule through the backdoor”.
While no initiative had been taken to restore the popular rule in J&K, the government in the UT seemed to have been outsourced to bureaucrats mostly from outside the state, having hardly any connect with the general masses who were suffering for even the basic amenities, he said.
“The silence of GoI and ECI over J&K while holding elections for other States amply revealed the intentions of the Centre which seemed hell-bent to continue its indirect rule in J&K through these bureaucrats. With the political process having been rendered defunct in the new UT, political parties discredited and discouraged and opposition parties suppressed, the democracy had been reduced to a farce in J&K which had eventually given rise to present tensions in the valley and elsewhere in J&K,” he said.
The NPP president appealed to the social and political organisations and NGOs present on the occasion to contribute their “might”. He sought early revival of democracy by putting an end to “proxy rule” imposed by the Centre in J&K “to save the Constitution and Rule of Law”.
