Basohli, Apr 15: Union Minister of State in PMO and BJP candidate for Udhampur-Doda-Kathua Lok Sabha constituency Dr Jitendra Singh Monday stated that Section 254 C, pertaining to land vis-a-vis Displaced Persons (DPs) from Pak occupied Jammu & Kashmir (PoJK) was already under government review.
“Congress party and its allies, with nothing to claim to their credit, are desperately trying to make an issue out of non-issue and confuse the masses on the eve of election on this account,” he said.
Speaking at a public rally in the presence of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh here and later addressing a series of public meetings at different locations including Govindsar, Basantpur etc., Dr Jitendra said that there should be absolutely no apprehension or misgiving in this regard, particularly when government had been reiterating in the past also that this Section was under review. Citing evidence, he said, it was only about six months back, the delegation of PoJK persons met the then Chief Secretary J&K Arun Kumar Mehta who was on record having stated and a report was published in all the newspapers quoting former Chief Secretary (A K Mehta) that the concerns expressed by the PoJK Displaced Persons were under consideration and the doubts regarding Section 254(C) would be cleared after the matter was reviewed.
Dr Jitendra said, “Most of the PoJK representatives and leaders meeting the government officials from time to time have been candidly conveyed this and this is also the stand of the central government headed by Prime Minister Narenda Modi and the Home Ministry headed by Amit Shah. Still certain elements are trying to create confusion but their mischievous design will not succeed.”
He recalled that it was after 2014 under Prime Minister Narendra Modi that a Rs 150 Cr bridge was constructed at Keerian-Gandyal just to cater to about two thousand population out of which around one thousand were PoJK Displaced Persons. “The question was why the earlier governments headed by Congress did not address this demand, possibly because they did not find much of a vote bank stake here. But under the Modi government, we decided to fulfil the lapses of the past and meet every genuine demand of every section of society including the PoJK DPs regardless of vote bank consideration,” he said.
Dr Jitendra said, “It hardly needs to be stated or proved because in the last 10 years, the government headed by Prime Minister Modi has walked extra mile to support all the genuine demands of each section of displaced persons, be it the West Pakistan refugees or PoJK DPs or the displaced Kashmiri Pandit community.” He said that the question was to be answered by the Congress and its allies who ruled over Jammu & Kashmir and at the Centre for more than a half of century but deliberately ignored all these sections of displaced communities because they did not find their vote bank among them.
The Union Minister recalled that it was the government headed by Prime Minister Modi, which gave citizenship rights to refugees from (West) Pakistan nearly 70 years after they had settled in Jammu & Kashmir. “Even though in today’s time, citizens moving to other countries also get their citizenship rights after a certain number of years and one of the citizens from India has already become Prime Minister of UK. Not only this, even among the West Pakistan refugees, India got two Prime Ministers namely Inder Kumar Gujral and Dr Manmohan Singh but ironically if these two great men had chosen to settle in Jammu & Kashmir, they too might have been subject to the same hardship as their counterparts here. But it was only Prime Minister Modi who gave them equal rights, equal platforms and equal opportunities as any other citizens of India,” he said.