New Delhi: With sighting of some people waving the flag of the brutal jihadist Islamic State group in Srinagar Friday, Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar said that Kashmiri youth are “patriotic” but “some misguided elements hold different banners at different times”.
Javadekar, addressing media persons at the Foreign Correspondents Club of South Asia here, said in answer to a query that “ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria or Islamic State) represents yet another face of terrorism, and the kind of radicalization is of concern”.
He said the union home ministry and the army are “vigilant” and “such kind of challenges are faced and tackled effectively”.
A few people were sighted displaying the IS flag in Jamia Masjid area of old Srinagar city Friday.
There have been some earlier such incidents too in the Valley.
To a question on there being no leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha as the Congress has failed to get the minimum number of seats required to get the status, Javadekar said that there have been eight Lok Sabhas earlier, including in 1984, and 1991, when there was no opposition leader.
“In earlier eight Lok Sabhas there was no leader of opposition. Earlier, the media never asked why there is no LoP, but now everyone is asking the question,” said Javadekar, who is also minister for parliamentary affairs.
He said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has got 282 seats, 11 more than the 272 required for majority out of 543 parliamentary seats, while the Congress had got 44 – “11 lower than the number required” to get LoP status.
“I can’t lend 11 to them,” he quipped.
“This is political reality. It has happened eight times earlier.. If people have rejected them (Congress) it is not my duty,” he said, adding that however in the Rajya Sabha, the BJP is in a “hopeless minority, but we are taking everyone along.”