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J&K CM wrote to MPs to push for Bill on restoration of statehood in monsoon session
Omar Abdullah wrote to presidents of 42 political parties, including Congress, on July 29 urging them to bring legislation in monsoon session.
Chief minister Omar Abdullah on Wednesday said he has written to several parties with a sizeable presence in Parliament, seeking their support for the introduction of a Bill for the restoration of Jammu and Kashmir’s statehood in the ongoing monsoon session.
The Centre abrogated Article 370, which accorded a special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, on August 5, 2019, and divided it into two Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.
“I have written a letter to all those parties who have a good number of MPs in Parliament and requested them to help on the promise made to Jammu and Kashmir on statehood and raise the issue in Parliament so that a Bill is brought in this session itself and Jammu and Kashmir gets its statehood back,” Abdullah told reporters in Srinagar.
The CM’s outreach comes amid a growing demand for the return of Jammu and Kashmir’s statehood. His push is a renewed effort to hold the Centre accountable for its commitment to the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
On July 29, Abdullah wrote a letter to the presidents of 42 political parties, including Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge, urging them to press the Centre to bring a legislation in the monsoon session to restore statehood to Jammu and Kashmir, saying it must not be viewed as a concession, but as an essential course correction.
He wrote that downgrading a state to a UT sets a “profound and unsettling” precedent and is a “constitutional red line” that “must never be crossed”.
“The act of reducing Jammu and Kashmir from a state to a union territory in 2019 and the prolonged delay in restoring its status as a full state... has profound implications for the future of Indian polity,” the three-page letter stated.
The chief minister said the reorganisation of Jammu and Kashmir into a Union Territory in August 2019 was presented as a “temporary and transitional measure” and cited repeated public assurances from Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Abdullah cited the stand of the Centre before the Supreme Court reaffirming its commitment to restore statehood at the earliest.
However, he said, the “interpretation of terms like ‘at the earliest’ or ‘as soon as possible’ cannot stretch into years or decades”.
“The people of Jammu and Kashmir have already waited long enough — statehood must be restored now.”
The chief minister highlighted the “remarkable and enthusiastic participation” of the people of Jammu and Kashmir in last year’s assembly elections and said that they turned up in “record numbers” and demonstrated an “unshaken faith in our constitutional processes and democratic institutions”.
In a “respectful acknowledgement” of this, his government’s first act was to pass a unanimous resolution calling for the immediate restoration of statehood. Abdullah said he personally handed over this resolution to PM Modi and was “assured that statehood would be restored”.
However, “more than nine months have passed and yet there is no clarity, timeline, or visible progress toward fulfilling that solemn assurance”, he lamented.
Abdullah pointed to two recent events as “extraordinary opportunities to heal historical wounds and reinforce national unity” -- the high voter turnout in the recent elections and the public condemnation of terrorism following the Pahalgam attack. “To allow such moments to pass -- unacknowledged or unreciprocated due to narrow partisan calculations, will, without doubt, be a monumental mistake,” the chief minister cautioned and quoted famous poet Muzaffar Razmi Kairanavi: “Lamhon ne khata ki thi, sadiyon ne saza payi (Moments committed the mistake, centuries got the punishment)”.
