Alienation in Kashmir is legacy of Congress: Jaitley

New Delhi: Finance Minister Arun Jailtey on Thursday maintained in the Rajya Sabha that mistakes made by the Congress had led to alienation among people in Kashmir and rejected its charge that the process had started in the last four and half years. Participating in a discussion on the imposition of President’s Rule in Jammu and Kashimr, he asserted that when history gives its verdict on the role of India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and that of BJP ideologue Syama Prasad Mookerjee, the Congress will feel the pain.

Rebutting the allegations levelled against the BJP-led government by Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad, the Finance Minister said it was wrong to say that alienation started in the state in the last four years. He also defended BJP forming alliance with the PDP in the state to run a coalition government. Jaitley said there “is a history of alienation, there are policies” and noted that assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir for successive years including in 1957, 1962 and 1967 were not fair and Congress had also indulged destabilising governments. “If elections are held in such manner, it will sow seeds of alienation. The people of the state felt they do not have right to contest polls. This is the politics you did to stay in power,” he said.

Jaitley said people of the Valley still recall that the first free and fair elections in the state were held after Morarji Desai became prime minister in 1977. He said the Congress government led by Nehru had committed a series of mistakes in Kashmir. He said the Indira-Sheikh Abdullah agreement was reached in 1975 but disagreements cropped up soon. The minister said that the then state Governor B.K. Nehru refused to play the Centre’s game to destabilize the Farooq Abdullah government in 1984 and stepped down. He said a new governor was appointed and a new government was formed by breaking the National Conference.

Jaitley said Congress again joined hands with Farooq Abdullah in 1986 and ran a government till 1989 which caused “so much alienation which the valley had never seen”. The minister said the problem of stone-pelting erupted around 2010 after militants and separatists realized that the capacity of the security forces was getting better and their tactics were proving futile. He said the separatists realized that there was a consensus in the world that “nobody can be allowed to enjoy the fruits of terrorism” and organizations such as Hurriyat Conference sought to start “masked disobedience” by encourgaging people, including students, to pelt stones at security forces. There has been a reduction in incidents of stone-pelting over the past few years, he said. (IANS)

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