Congress veteran backs separatists' stand on Kashmir

A senior Congress leader and former minister in Jammu and Kashmir on Friday dropped a bombshell by saying the stand of separatists is right “as New Delhi has set different rules for the state and the rest of the country.”

Taj Moh-ud-Din, who held important portfolios from 2002 to 2014 in successive coalition governments in the state, also alleged that former Union home minister P Chidambaram, at the behest of National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC), played “dirty politics” with him and “engineered” his defeat in the last year’s Assembly elections.

“Though Jammu and Kashmir is part of India, it (New Delhi) treats Kashmiris as aliens when it comes to their rights and descent. Any Kashmiri leader who raises voice is branded as anti-national and marginalised,” Taj was quoted by a local news agency as saying.

He supported the stand of separatists on Kashmir. “In a way, the stand of separatists is vindicated that New Delhi has set different rules for Jammu and Kashmir and the rest of India. I was not only marginalised but victimised by the then Union home minster (P Chidambaram) and his ministry for asking NHPC to give J&K its due,” the former minister claimed.

Power politics

He said the way he was treated within his party (Congress) after his initiative to trace the lost file on Salal power project is testimony that “The government of India was never serious in handing over the power projects back to the state.”

Taj claimed that he was shifted from PHE, Irrigation and Flood Control ministry in 2012 “to safeguard the interests of NHPC in state and Chidambarm was behind the move.”

“Then chief minister Omar Abdullah told me several times that I was removed on the directions of the home ministry and he had no option but to concede to the Congress’s demands,” he claimed.

Taj had, during his tenure as PHE minister, asked NHPC to handover Salal and Uri-I power projects to Jammu and Kashmir. The minister had been at loggerheads with the NHPC over the latter’s rights on using water resources in the state.
DH News Service