Cong, NC, PDP must join hands for solution: Chidambaram
NEW DELHI: Former finance minister P Chidambaram said on Wednesday that the situation in Jammu and Kashmir was sliding towards “total chaos” because of the state
NEW DELHI: Former finance minister P Chidambaram said on Wednesday that the situation in Jammu and Kashmir was sliding towards “total chaos” because of the state government.

“The way out of the crisis can’t be found by the present government. The Congress, NC and if willing, the PDP must come together to find a solution”, he said.
Chidambaram maintained the curbing the violence should be the government’s priority and that a path of “hope, peace and prosperity” has to be found. He added that the Prime Minister, home minister and defence minister’s statements had only “exacerbated” the crisis.
Meanwhile, the CPI(M) upheld the former finance minister’s views on the Kashmir crisis but slammed the Congress for distancing itself from Chidambaram’s “sensible point”.
“The Congress is sending out dubious signals on Kashmir. P Chidambaran had made the sensible point that India should honour the grand bargain made with the Kashmiri people at the time of accession in 1948. The official spokesman of the Congress distanced the party from his views by claiming that they were personal in nature,” the latest issue of CPI(M) mouthpiece, People’s Democracy, said.
The CPI(M) maintained that Modi’s stand on Kashmir was a “regressive step back” from “Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s approach of insaniyat, Kashmiriyat and jamooriyat.” During his tenure as the Prime Minister, Vajpayee had announced in 2003 that the government will negotiate with Kashmiri leaders within the realms of humanity—a marked shift from confining the dialogues only within the legal boundary. The communist mouthpiece, edited by Prakash Karat, concluded that the NDA government was treating the “popular unrest in Kashmir as a law and order problem.”
“The stand adopted by the Modi government in dealing with Kashmir will be disastrous for the people of Jammu and Kashmir and for the Indian Union”, the CPI(M) said.
ABOUT THE AUTHORSaubhadra ChatterjiSaubhadra Chatterji is Deputy Political Editor at the Hindustan Times. He writes on both politics and policies.

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