The National Conference (NC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on April 16 said former J&K Governor Satya Pal Malik’s account of the reading down of Article 370 in 2019 showed that the mandated consultation mechanism had been completely bypassed by the Centre.
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“An appointed individual of the GoI (Government of India) was deciding for 14 million people and he brazenly says that it was their [the BJP’s] government [decision], as ‘Mujhe kya, unko karna tha to karte, na karna tha to na karte, mujhe kya tha’ (What’s it to me? If they wanted to do it, they would; if they didn’t want to do it, they wouldn’t). This is how the fate of the people of J&K was decided on that day. This is how they lynched and murdered democracy,” senior NC leader and former Minister Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi said.
He was referring to the statement made by Mr. Malik in an interview to The Wire recently. “I was told a day before that a letter has been sent to me which I should open in the morning and get it approved at that very moment. It was their [the BJP’s] government [at the Centre]. Whether they wanted to keep it or remove it, why would I object?” Mr. Malik had said in the interview.
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Mr. Mehdi said the Clause 3 of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution says that abrogation could not happen without the concurrence of the State’s, in this case J&K’s, Constituent Assembly, that is, the will of the people. “And this is how the concurrence was taken from the people of J&K — daylight thuggery,” Mr. Mehdi said.
Senior PDP leader Naeem Akhtar said any attempt at “tampering with Article 370 in J&K should have been essentially ratified by J&K’s Constituent Assembly of 1951”.
“Leave aside the legal requirement of having the approval of the Constituent Assembly, the Governor acted as Constituent Assembly and did not know what a letter from Delhi held in it. Even the draft came from Delhi and Satya Pal signed on the dotted line. If ever this case is legally scrutinised, even a Khap Panchayat (non-state leadership by community elders, usually along caste lines) will have to cancel the August 5 fraud,” Mr. Akhtar said.
Former Chief Minister and PDP president Mehbooba Mufti said the killing of Atiq Ahmed and his brother Ashraf in Uttar Pradesh was a diversionary tactic to shift attention from the revelations over the Pulwama attack, and corruption. “U.P. has slipped into anarchy and jungle raj. Cold-blooded murders and lawlessness are being celebrated by rabid right wingers amidst slogans of Jai Shri Ram. A clever diversionary tactic to shift attention from Satya Pal Malik’s damning revelations about the Pulwama attack and corruption,” Ms. Mufti said.