SRINAGAR: BJP on Saturday accused the governing National Conference (NC) of trying to “destabilise the peaceful atmosphere of J&K” by making provocative statements and raising religious slogans in the just concluded Budget session of assembly.
“NC has never done anything for peace in the region. NC MLAs raised the slogan of “nara-e-takbeer” (God is great) in the assembly,” Sunil Sharma, BJP member and leader of opposition, said at a press conference. “The assembly is not Jamia Masjid. You want to provoke and misguide people. We will not allow it,” he added.
Sharma alleged NC was trying to create a religious division in J&K. “They should remember that the assembly is a temple of the Constitution of India,” he said.
In the last three days of the budget session, which concluded on April 9, the House witnessed heated arguments and commotion after speaker Abdul Rahim Rather refused to entertain an adjournment motion by NC members on the Waqf (Amendment) Act. The party legislators wanted to have a debate on the Act and pass a resolution against it.
The speaker didn’t allow the debate on the waqf legislation saying it had been challenged in the Supreme Court and under assembly rules, any sub-judice matter could not be debated in the House. The BJP legislators had responded to slogans of “nara-e-takbeer” with “Jai Shri Ram”.
Sharma said NC often claimed 10,000 of its party workers had been killed by terrorists during decades of turmoil in J&K. “But, when these were killed, Omar Abdullah and Farooq Abdullah were holding charges of the home department. Since the Govt of India took control of the law and order, not a single NC worker has been killed,” the BJP neta asserted.
Sharma said the NC should focus on providing free ration, free electricity and employment to people, as it promised in its manifesto. “On April 16, NC govt will complete six months. In this period, it did not fulfil any promise, with no announcements made either in the budget session or in their statements,” he added
