Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Friday called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi who she said assured her "100 percent" of "no fiddling" with Article 370, which grants special status to her state.
The meeting rides on a debate on relevance of Article 35A, which was added to Article 370 of the Constitution in 1954, and is being challenged in the Supreme Court. Mufti is fighting increasing calls from her ally BJP to end the law that empowered the J&K legislature to define the state’s “permanent residents” and their special rights and privileges. The move has led to political mobilisation in the state with NC leader Farooq Abdullah and other regional parties coming together to oppose any such intervention from Delhi.
"That is the basis of the agenda and no one can go against it. The response of the prime minister is positive. The prime minister gave 100 per cent assurance to the Agenda of Alliance," she told reporters after she had 15-minutes interaction with Modi. Mehbooba stated that she apprised the PM of the tough times state was passing through but added the situation was gradually improving.
"People of Jammu and Kashmir feel that their identity will be in danger. A message should go that there is no such thing," the CM urged.
Arguing that the state should continue to enjoy a special status given the historical context, the chief minister stated Jammu and Kashmir, at the time of accession, took a different decision to join "our country, India".
"Jammu and Kashmir has the peculiar diversity where everything is different. It is a Muslim majority state. Hindus also live, Sikhs and Buddhists also live. Seeing that, there is a special position of Jammu and Kashmir. It was a question that the idea of India has to accommodate with the idea of Jammu and Kashmir," Mehbooba stressed.
She described that J&K was the crown of the country as despite being a Muslim dominated state it had rejected the two-nation theory to join this country with its people holding the view that their aspirations, identity would always remain alive.
The wounds are now getting healed from last year, when the situation had turned bad hinting at the unrest that followed killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani, the chief minister said.
On Thursday state BJP spokesperson Virendra Gupta had said time was ripe to get Article 370 and Article 35A quashed as they created a "separatist psyche" among the Kashmiris.
Published 11 August 2017, 08:47 IST