CHENNAI: In a measured step, a meeting of 12 alliance parties convened by the DMK, main Opposition in Tamil Nadu, to discuss the latest developments in Jammu and Kashmir (J& K) in the wake of the Centre withdrawing all special powers to J and K under Article 370 and bifurcating that state into two union territories, has called for sending an MPs’team comprising all political parties in Parliament, on a fact-finding mission to the northern state.
The Central government should facilitate the travel of an all-party MPs’team to Kashmir and enable them to meet and talk to the people there to get to know the ground situation there and the report of the fact-finding team should be made known to the people at large, the meeting chaired by DMK president M. K. Stalin at the party headquarters here on Saturday evening, urged in a resolution.
The participants in the meeting included Durai Murugan, T R Baalu (DMK), K. Veeramani (DK), Vaiko (MDMK), K.V. Thankkabalu (Indian National Congress), Thol Thirumavalavan (VCK), K Balakrishnan (CPI (M), R. Mutharasan (CPI), Jawahirullah (Manithaneya Makkal Katchi), Prof K M Khader Mohideen (IUML), Easwaran (Kongu Makkal Desiya Katchi) and Tamimum Ansari, MLA. The leaders discussed the fallout of the Central government's decisions taken on August 5.
Mr Stalin later told reporters that the leaders of all secular parties who are allies of the DMK discussed the Kashmir developments in great detail and adopted the above mentioned resolution.
Mr Stalin urged that the Central government should immediately take steps to enable an all-party MPs’team to visit Kashmir to know the ground realities.
Mr Stalin said the DMK and its allies will also continue to monitor the developing situation in Kashmir and again meet later to decide on the next course of action.
The resolution adopted by the DMK and its allies, analyzing the history and background that led to Article 370, conferring special status to J and K, in the Constitution after extensive consultations between late Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and 'Lion of Kashmir’Sheikh Abdullah, and others, besides discussions in the Constituent Assembly where even Sardar Patel had defended it, said there appeared to be no scope or modification to that Article after so many years now.
Terming the BJP-led NDA government scrapping most provisions of Article 370 and bifurcating J and K into two union territories as a “stupendous murder of democracy and an unpardonable betrayal of the interests of the people of Jammu and Kashmir”, the resolution condemned the BJP-led NDA using its brute majority in Parliament to “further push its politics of religious communalism”.
The DMK resolution expressed concern that there was no guarantee that such a thing will not happen to any other State in India and the Centre's actions will set a bad precedent in Constitutional Law. The J and K Reorganisation Bill, apart from having been passed in a hasty manner without ascertaining the views of the political parties in J and K, will have undesirable, unpredictable consequences.
Calling for immediate release of all the political leaders including former Chief Ministers in J and K, the DMK and its allies urged in the resolution that until the Supreme Court decided on the issues and a popularly elected government was in place in J and K, this anti-democratic, anti-federal J and K Reorganisation Bill adopted by Parliament and its implementation should be kept in abeyance.
