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BJP traces its 70-year-old commitment to abrogate Article 370

Last Updated 07 August 2020, 02:44 IST

A day after the Ram temple event at Ayodhya, BJP on Thursday brought the spotlight on another of its core agenda—the abrogation of Article 370 that took away the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, a decision taken on August 5 last year.

On a day a BJP Sarpanch was shot dead in Kashmir and the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir got a new LG- Manoj Sinha, a dedicated party worker from Uttar Pradesh with roots in RSS, the ruling party took to social media to showcase “New Jammu and Kashmir without Article 370” and highlighted the “sustained movement by Jana Sangh and BJP to remove Article 370” on the hashtag #OneYearOfNoArticle370.

In a series of tweets the BJP said that due to abrogation of Article 370, 5,300 Displaced Persons’ families have been included in Rehabilitation Package and with the enforcement of 106 Central laws in J&K, rights of women, Dalits, Adivasis and refugees will now be protected and development will take place.

The party traced the history of its well-pronounced stand on Article 370 in the last nearly 70 years since Independence, which though remained the same in the core aspect, but kept changing tone and tenor in different time zones.

The most elaborate reiteration of the BJP to do away with Article 370 came in 2019 election manifesto in which the party said it was committed to annulling Article 35A of the Constitution of India as the provision is “discriminatory against non-permanent residents and women of J&K.” and linked with development saying “We believe Article 35 A is an obstacle to the development of the state.” It said, “we will make all efforts to ensure the safe return of Kashmiri Pandits and we will provide financial assistance for the resettlement of refugees from West Pakistan, Pakistan occupied Jammu and Kashmir (POJK) and Chhamb.”

68 years before that, BJP’s earlier avatar Jana Sangh in October 1951 had pitched for the abrogation of Article 370, “to end the state of uncertainty about Kashmiri’s future” and “integrate it with Bharat like other acceding states and not given any special position.”

In 1957 polls, the party said that J&K should be brought fully under the Constitution of India by repealing Article 370 of the Constitution for the state’s safety and security. In 1966, the Jana Sangh described Article 370- a “psychological barrier” between the people of the state and their counterparts of the rest of India. which has been exploited all these years by anti-national elements and Pakistani agents to the detriment of vital Indian interests.

In the 1984 election manifesto, the BJP proposed to restore “the balance between Centre and states as visualised by our constitution makers” and for this to “delete the temporary Article 370 of the Constitution.” Its 1989 manifesto, BJP stressed on National Unity and integration and for that, deemed the abrogation of Article 370 important.

BJP’s stand on 370 was stronger in its Manifesto in 1991 general elections when the party had also launched a massive campaign for Ram temple. It reached a crescendo culminating into Murali Manohar Joshi hoisting tricolour at Lal Chowk in Srinagar on January 26, 1992. The 1996 manifesto read “we will abrogate Article 370 of the Constitution, which puts Jammu and Kashmir on a separate and separatist pedestal, for the state’s full and final integration with the Union.”

On Thursday the party said, “a new wind of development is blowing in Jammu and Kashmir and there has been a check on terrorism, nepotism and corruption in Jammu and Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370.” Many take the claims with a pinch of salt.

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(Published 06 August 2020, 20:39 IST)

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