By Raqib Hameed Naik, TwoCircles.net,< /b>
Srinagar : Senior BJP Leader and former political advisor to BJP State President, Hari Om Gupta raked up a controversy on Wednesday by issuing a statement urging Prime Minister Narendra Modi to segregate Jammu and Ladkah region from Kashmir citing alienation of the former regions.
Terming segregation of both the regions from Kashmir Valley as a need of the nation, the leader asked PM Modi to tackle what he terms ‘restive, radicalised and one-community ‘region of Kashmir.
“The needs, compulsions, culture, ethnicity, language and political aspirations of the people of Jammu province are different from those of the Kashmiri leadership, both separatist and otherwise. The people of Jammu province, like Ladakh, long for their complete merger with India and abrogation of anti-democratic, anti-people and divisive Articles 370 and 35-A of the Indian Constitution,” Hari Om said in a statement to a Valley-based news agency CNS.
“The segregation of Jammu province and Ladakh region from Kashmir will not only end alienation in these two regions, but also greatly help policy planners in New Delhi tackle in an effective manner the restive and radicalised Kashmir Valley,” he added.
In August this year, Hari Om was removed from the post of Political Advisor to BJP State president for writing a letter to party president Amit Shah urging him to quit alliance with its coalition partner in state, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The BJP leader further attacked New Delhi stand on yoking together the people of Jammu province and Kashmir Valley under a single state as senseless and undesirable resolve which he termed is leading to a growing discontent in Jammu province.
“PDP, NC, Congress and CPI-M have the same mentality and stand which is anti-Jammu and anti-India. The imperialist Kashmiri leadership has converted Jammu province into the Valley’s colony,” claimed Hari Om.
He urged Prime Minister Modi to look into all these facts in the face and promote the paramount national interest in this sensitive part of the country by dividing the state into three states. He said there is but one way in which the national interest in this part of the country could be protected and promoted, alienation in Jammu province ended and the restive Kashmir tackled and that is by ending the unnatural wedlock between Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh.
Meanwhile the State BJP Leadership backtracked from this statement, terming it it as an individual stand instead of the party’s position on the issue.
Avinash Rai Khannam the BJP leader in charge of the Jammu and Kashmir division, said that Hari Om is no authority in the party and he has no right to use the name of the party for his ‘dirty’ means.
“Who is Hari Om? He is not an authority in the BJP. He has no right to issue communal and disturbing statements that brings a slur on the name of our party. BJP in no way is in favour of trifurcation as this party looks at Jammu and Kashmir as a single entity,” Khanna said.