PDP flays BJP for its position on Jammu and Kashmir

Srinagar, March 29 (IANS) The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Friday alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was trying to convert the constitutional relationship of the state with India into an occupation.

A statement issued by senior PDP leader and former Minister Naeem Akhtar said: "BJP is trying to convert the legal and constitutional relationship between Jammu and Kashmir and the Union into an occupation through subterfuge and systemic subversion.

"It is unfortunate that the Sangh Parivar has fielded one of the better known lawyers of the country to oppose the Supreme Court orders which have upheld Article 35A not once, but twice in the past".

The statement was issued by the PDP in response to a blog titled "The rule of law and the state of Jammu and Kashmir" by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

In the blog, Jaitley said that Article 35A was an impediment to the development of Jammu and Kashmir.

Jaitley called Article 35A "a surreptitious executive insertion in the Constitution which was neither a part of the original Constitution, nor was it an amendment that needs to be approved by two-third majority of both Houses of the Parliament".

The PDP statement said that Jaitley needs to be told that the framing and the approval of the Constitution and its development was not an isolated event, but it had a political constitutional history behind it which the Sangh Parivar and some of their allies in the media were trying to overlook in pursuit of votes.

He said that Jaitley should know more than anybody else about the laws of the state and that Article 35A was not in any way a hurdle in investment in the state.