Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) president Amit Shah has said that abrogating Article 35-A was the party’s commitment to the people of the country, a media report said on Monday.
The Quint quoted Shah as saying that abrogating Article 35Ais in the BJP manifesto and has been so since 1950.
“It has not happened till now as we do not have a majorityin Rajya Sabha, but I believe it will happen by 2020. Removing Article 35A hasbeen in our manifesto since 1950, it is our commitment to the people of thecountry,” Shah said at the News18 Agenda India Summit.
Article 35A empowers the government of Jammu and Kashmir todefine a class of persons as constituting “permanent residents” of the stateand also allows the government to confer special rights and privileges to thepeople with respect to employment and acquisition of immovable property in thestate.
On militancy
Amit Shah claimed that the BJP has been able to curbmilitant funding and “radicalisation”.
He said that the BJP government has banned organisations andplugged funding to curb militancy in Kashmir.
Shah said that the maximum number of militants have beenkilled during the BJP rule. “…and we will continue to do so. Earlier, therewere talks of fake Hindu terror…now, the world talks about the terror thatemanates from Pakistan,” The Quint quoted Shah as having said.
Air strikes
Talking about the controversy on the death toll, on theother side of the border, Shah said that he does not prefer to watch foreignmedia and only quoted the figures, about the death toll, of the national media.
“I quoted the Balakot figures from what I saw on our mediachannels…I did not watch or refer to foreign media reports,” Shah said.
The summit was attended by other leaders like Union ministerNirmala Sitharaman, CPI(M) leader Prakash Karat and Opposition leaders KapilSibal and Manish Tewari among others.