By IANS,
New Delhi : Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Monday reiterated his call for peace in Jammu and Kashmir, urging all “right thinking” people to work together to restore normalcy in the troubled state.
“Everyone has an obligation to contribute. All political parties, as I said from the ramparts of the Red Fort (on Independence Day) have a role to play. This is not a partisan issue,” the prime minister maintained.
He was speaking to reporters in Parliament House after the swearing-in ceremony of noted economist C. Rangarajan and former Karnataka chief minister S.M. Krishna as Rajya Sabha members.
“All political parties, all right-thinking people must work together to bring the situation under control,” Manmohan Singh maintained.
His comments came on a day when separatist groups were marching to the UN office in the Kashmir Valley and supporters of the group spearheading the Amarnath agitation were courting arrest in Jammu.
During the course of his Independence Day address, Manmohan Singh had said: “In this hour of crisis, divisive politics will lead us nowhere”, and had appealed to all political parties to keep in view the long-term interests of the state to find a permanent solution to the problems confronting it.
Speaking out strongly against “divisive politics” on the Amarnath land row, Manmohan Singh had also urged political parties not to use religion to divide the people.