National Conference president Farooq Abdullah Wednesday said that the people of Jammu and Kashmir are the “rightful owners” of their land and nobody would dare fiddle with the integrity and identity of Kashmir “till the party’s flag exists”.
Farooq, according to a National Conference statement, saidat a public meeting at Beerwah, Budgam, that the NC flag symbolised sacrificesof thousands of people for the better future of Jammu and Kashmir and itspeople.
“The state is fraught with tumultuous times. Our specialconstitutional position has become a sore in the eyes of those who are hellbent on destroying the very fundamentals of our accession with the Union ofIndia. Time has come to make it clear to such forces as are inimical to ouridentity how passionately we feel about our unique identity,” he said.
Farooq, while lashing out at BJP-RSS for “tarnishing thesecular face of India”, said: “Today we are facing such forces in our countrythat have always shown abhorrence for the inclusiveness of Indian democraticset up. The forces are pitching onecommunity against another without realising its far-reaching consequences. The constitution of India ensures all itscitizenry equal and undaunted basic rights”.
Referring to “the sorry tale of minorities in India underBJP”, Farooq said that “today our nation is facing immense hazard in the formof communal strife. We are at crossroads, now it is up to us to decide if Indiaremains secular and progressive in its outlook wherein all the communitiesthrive and draw their sustenance affably or a country which is tangled with theclutches of communal strife and bigotry”.
“Now it is up to the people. The opportunity has come. Weshould not let it pass by us unutilized,” he said.
He flayed the Peoples Democratic Party for surrenderingstate’s fiscal autonomy, the statement said.
“In 1996 when I took over as the chief minister, sales taxamount was overdue to people. But the situation was such that the people werenot in a condition to pay back their dues. Sensing the appalling financialcondition of the people, I waived off some amount and doled out wellthought-out policy wherein people were told to pay back the sales tax in twentyyears’ time. But now we cannot imagine easing the burden off people’sshoulders, all thanks to PDP government which took no time to implement GST inour state. Now if the state government wants to do something on those lines, ithas to get permission from the Centre”.
“This is what PDP has done. Whatever was left of ourautonomy, they shamelessly surrendered it before the Centre for the sake ofchair and power,” the statement said.
“So enamoured were Muftis by the lust of power that theygulped down the insult inflicted by PM Modi on late Mufti Sayeed publicly whileaddressing a public meet in Srinagar. Had I been there I would have badegood-bye to the coalition and Modi on the spot. But that requires moralstrength, which time has shown is lacking in PDP,” the statement read.