Jammu and Kashmir National Conference Member of Parliament from Anantnag Hasnain Masoodi on Friday said that the state of J&K has traditionally been meted out with injustice.
While speaking in the Parliament over the debate on theJammu and Kashmir Reservation (Amendment Bill) 2019, Hasnain Masoodi said thepeople of Jammu and Kashmir despite throwing their fate with a secular Indiahave been denied fruits of democracy. He said the special status that wasassured to the state after Maharaja had signed conditional accession with theUnion of India was continuously infringed upon. “It started with theunconstitutional, illegal arrest of Sheikh Sahib, and the unrelenting and unprincipledinfringement of the rights of the state which it had acquired through the 1952Delhi agreement,” he said.
Referring to the reservation for the people living along theInternational border he said, “The party supports reservations fordisadvantaged sections of the society, but the fall out of the bill will haveits affect on the reservation in jobs that has already been given to peopleliving along LOC. Until now the people living along the line of control werethe sole beneficiaries of the reservation, but now they would have to sharetheir reservation quota with the people living along international border. Theproposed reservation for the people living along IB is an extension of thereservation granted to People living along LOC, that means people living alongIB and LOC will now have to share from the same pool of reservation. Now wewould see more people competing for a specific number of reserved seats. The 3%quota will now comprise of the people living along IB and LOC. This our partybelieves calls for a second look; which I implore should be left to the statelegislature to decide upon,” he said adding, “Our party is not opposed togranting reservation to the people living along IB in J&K, we are of theview that the proposed measure should be left to the state legislature todecide upon.”
Masoodi while underscoring the need of having an electedgovernment in the state said that previously having a prolonged Governor’s ruleand President’s rule from 1990-96 didn’t prove any effective towards improvingthe situation. “It was only after a representative government led by Dr FarooqAbdullah came in, things started improving. Today we see a gulf between thegovernment and the people of state increasing. To reverse this trend we oughtto have a representative government in the state. Why is that, the state isbeing deliberately kept away from a democratic process. Previously after thecollapse of PDP-BJP government, we saw how a chance of having a viablegovernment in the state was obstructed in contravention of rules andregulations. The clumsy and hasty decision of slashing governor’s rule in thestate was followed by horse trading and other undemocratic activities.”
Masoodi while referring to Home Minister’s statement overthe conduct of peaceful parliament, ULB and Panchayat polls said, “I have heardthe honorable members sitting in treasury benches boasting how no strike callwas given on the visit of Home Minister to Kashmir. All this should act as anadded reason for the Government of India to go for Assembly elections withoutany delay. Moreover there is nothing which necessitates extending thepresident’s rule by six months under Art 356.”
“The people havepinned high hopes on the New Modi led government to convert the massive mandateinto an aggressive peace initiative. The changed sensation of the presentgovernment in favor of talks has filled the people with hope,” he said.