New Delhi, Sep 14 (IANS) Terming the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government as ‘totally clueless and spineless’ on tackling Kashmir, senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani Tuesday accused the government of ‘bending over backwards’ to placate secessionists in the Valley.
Speaking at the concluding session of a two-day workshop for spokespersons and media cell convenors of the BJP, Advani slammed the government over the deteriorating situation in Kashmir where 88 people have lost their lives in violence since June 11.
‘There is no government worth the name in Jammu and Kashmir. It has completely collapsed, ceding the ground to secessionists. However, the mess in Kashmir is not the making of only the government in Srinagar. In New Delhi, the UPA government is totally clueless and spineless,’ he said.
Advani said while the situation in the country was a cause of concern on many counts, in Jammu and Kashmir it was ‘indeed alarming’.
‘Each passing day strengthens our apprehension that the UPA government is about to capitulate before Pakistan-supported secessionists,’ he said.
Speaking a day before the all-party meeting on Kashmir, Advani said that instead of giving a fitting reply to secessionists, the government has been ‘demonizing’ the security forces.
‘There is continuing talk of diluting the AFSPA, and withdrawal of the forces. This is nothing but a surrender before Islamabad’s strategy of breaking India’s post-1947 unity.’
‘This is what the military rulers of Pakistan have been dreaming of ever since their defeat in Bangladesh’s War of Liberation in 1971. It is a shameful irony that if one Congress prime minister was responsible for India’s historic victory in that war, another Congress set up is working towards India’s surrender to Pakistan’s proxy war on India in Kashmir,’ Advani said.
Referring to demands of granting ‘maximum autonomy’ to Kashmir, he said that far from repealing Article 370, which grants special status to the state, the UPA government ‘looks all set to repeal years and decades of our collective gains in Kashmir, all because of its lack of will, vision, commitment and competence’.
He said the BJP and its earlier form Bharatiya Jan Sangh had waged a battle for extending many of the central government’s powers over Jammu & Kashmir since 1953.
He said that Jawaharlal Nehru had said in parliament that Article 370 was ‘a purely temporary provision’, but the UPA government was ‘bending over backwards to placate the secessionists’.
Pointing out that the Vajpayee government had rejected the ‘autonomy resolution’ adopted by the Jammu and Kashmir assembly in June 2000, Advani said the party was in favour of giving greater powers to all states but the process of Kashmir’s integration cannot be reversed in the name of autonomy.
‘I would like to warn the UPA government that if they decide to bow before the secessionists’ designs in J&K, the country will not pardon them,’ Advani said.
