Modi govt has put J&K on sale: Mehbooba
JAMMU: The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) president and former J&K chief minister, Mehbooba Mufti, on Tuesday said that the “BJP government has put Jammu and Kashmir on sale”.
She also accused the BJP government of communalising the atmosphere in Jammu and Kashmir, along with the country, to further its agenda.
“Jammu and Kashmir has been put on sale by the government for the people from outside. They want us to become so poor that we become totally dependent on other states,” she said at a press conference here.
“Jammu was a meeting point for different religions and ethnicities. Secularism was our identity and Jammu was the only place in India where one can see people from every religion, but it is being attacked. If the people of Jammu do not unite with Kashmir, then we will be wiped out,” she said.
The PDP chief added, “The biggest problem of J&K is unemployment, which has shot up to 18%, highest in the country.”
She also accused the BJP government of being bereft of any vision for Jammu and Kashmir. “Those in Delhi are using Jammu as a laboratory. Nehru and Vajpayee had a vision for Jammu and Kashmir, but the BJP is bereft of it. BJP’S vision is only to divide and rule, how to make people fight against each other and how to sell our resources to outsiders. For them, Sikhs are Khalistanis and we are Pakistanis,” she added.
She also criticised the Bjp-led government at the Centre for renaming roads and schools in J&K after soldiers killed in action.
“They (BJP) don’t have anything to do. Will changing names generate employment for the youth? They are doing so because they have nothing to show. In the past seven years, they have sold big assets of the nation to corporate houses,” Mehbooba said.
In August 2021, the Jammu and Kashmir administration had announced that the government schools would be renamed after bravehearts.
Jammu divisional commissioner had sent letters to the DCS of Doda, Jammu, Reasi, Poonch, Rajouri, Samba, Kathua, Kishtwar and Udhampur districts to identify government schools in villages and municipal wards that can be renamed.
The PDP chief also lashed out at the Centre’s delimitation exercise. “The delimitation exercise is being done haphazardly and hurriedly,” she said.
Mehbooba claimed that the BJP government had no plans to bring the nation out of the “morasses of economic crisis” and said that “they talk about Taliban, Afghanistan but not about farmers and unemployment”.