Centre should spell out its policy on Kashmir: Cong

The Congress today said the way situation in Jammu and Kashmir has been handled by the Centre and the PDP-BJP government in the state it is detrimental to both national security and national integration.
Asking the Centre to clearly spell out its Kashmir policy, the opposition party also said that J&K Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti's remarks, after meeting the prime minister that 'we are where Vajpayee left us', are a "damning indictment" of a complete lack of policy towards Kashmir.
"The manner in which the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre and the PDP-BJP government in the state has handled the Kashmir situation is completely detrimental to both the cause of national security as also national integration.

"And you are seeing the manifestations of this fallacious policy play itself out in other parts of India as well," Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari said.
He said it is high time the central government articulates, in clear terms, its policy towards the situation in Kashmir and asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to introspect as to what has gone wrong since 2014 that people have not turned up to exercise their franchise.
"Prime Minister Modi should ask himself this question that what has gone wrong between 2014 and 2017 that a mere 7 per cent people turned out to vote," he said.

Tewari said the one remark that the state chief minister made during her brief interaction sums up the entire essence of the meeting with the prime minister.

On Mufti's statement 'we are where Vajpayee left us', the Congress leader said "There could not have been a more damning indictment of a complete lack of policy which the NDA-BJP government and the Prime Minister has qua the situation in J&K. Nothing evidences this more than the extremely poor turnout in the Srinagar bypoll."
He said the postponement of the Parliamentary bypoll in Anantnag, the continuing tension on the Indo-Pakistan border, the fragile internal security situation in the Kashmir valley and the ever increasing and deepening contradictions between the BJP-PDP alliance government in J&K describe the state of affairs in the state.

Tewari said even after the worst phase of militancy in Kashmir between 1989 and 1996 when Assembly elections were held, the poll percentage was 53.92 per cent in 1996. In 2002, it was still 43.70 per cent during the NDA regime and in 2008 during UPA, it went up to 61.16 per cent.
During the 2014 elections, polling improved to 65.52 per cent, but during the current by-elections it fell to a mere 7 per cent and when a re-poll is ordered the voter turnout is a mere 2 per cent.
In contrast to these three years, Tewari claimed, during the NC-Congress government in J&K, the LoC remained relatively stable all though the six-year period and internal security situation barring a few months in 2010 remained relatively normal.

He said the interlocutor process was put in place by the UPA where there was a broad outreach to all spectrum's of people across the board in J&K and all-round development was the prevailing 'mantra'.
The Congress leader claimed that many of the projects which the prime minister has inaugurated, all were conceived and substantially implemented during those six years of the UPA government at the Centre and the NC-Congress government in the state.
On the incident in BITS Pilani, involving a student from Kashmir, he said unruly elements are cropping up across the country due to the absence of a core policy towards Kashmir and the government allowing vigilante groups to flourish.

He also attacked the prime minister, saying though Mufti has spoken after the meeting, but the prime minister has not "said a word".
Meanwhile, expressing concern over the situation in Kashmir, Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said the Governor's rule in Jammu and Kashmir is not a solution and there will be no peace in the state till the time the PDP-BJP government is there.
"The Governor's rule is not a solution. They should change their way. There will be no peace in Jammu and Kashmir till there is the rule of BJP and PDP," the former state chief minister said.