UPA has run out of ideas on Kashmir, says BJP

JAMMU - The Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) Thursday said the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government has run out of ideas for solving the Kashmir problem and called for full constitutional integration of the state with the country.

In a resolution on the Jammu and Kashmir situation passed at the party’s national office-bearers meeting here, the party said Article 370, which grants special status to the state, has worked against the interests of the people of the state.

BJP said constitutionally empowered provincial councils should be created to end the feeling of discrimination in Jammu and Ladakh regions.

The present UPA government at the centre has completely run out of ideas on Kashmir. On each visit to the Valley, the prime minister announces adhoc initiatives, the resolution said.

Noting that the state stands at historic crossroads today, the party said most people here want peace and progress.

This will not be achieved by a weak central government which is willing to dilute India’s sovereignty. It will be achieved by BJP’s approach of a full constitutional integration of Jammu and Kashmir into India, comfort and growth in the lives of people and complete negation of what separatists want, the resolution said.

It went on to say that the government headed by Jawaharlal Nehru had committed monumental lapses concerning the state by endorsing the demand for ascertaining wishes of the people, not settling some of the refugees who came from Pakistan in the state and providing a separate status to Jammu and Kashmir.

Kashmir continues to be part of the unfinished agenda of Pakistan emanating from partition and the Congress governments have lacked the vision to visualise the problems that its policies were creating, the party accused.

Till such time that the Congress-led UPA government realises that the problem had been created by erroneous vision and unless an alternative vision is accepted, the problem of the state will not be resolved, the resolution said.

The resolution said there was a feeling of discrimination in Jammu and Ladakh as the state has predominantly been administered by representatives of the Kashmir valley.

It also said that circumstances should be created for the return of Kashmiri Pandits and Sikhs who have been forced to leave the valley and added that the government must work under the parameters of the unanimous resolution of parliament that Pakistan- occupied Kashmir was an integral part of India.