Abdullahs, Article 370 disempowered Gujjars, says BJP spokesperson Arun Gupta

STATE TIMES NEWS

JAMMU: Three generations of Abdullahs (Sheikh Abdullah, Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah) exploited Gujjars to get their votes. However, none of them took any welfare measures to empower the Gujjar community and now Omar is misleading as also lying about giving forest rights to Gujjars, BJP spokesperson Arun Gupta said in Jammu on Sunday.
NC crushed Gujjars with the ax of Article 370. Gujjar did not oppose 370. But 370 was against Gujjar, Gupta said. The NC is talking about restoration of Article 370 and it wants to push the Gujjar community back to old days when they were not treated as Scheduled Tribes (STs) and did not get any reservation benefits, he added.
Due to Article 370, the Forest Rights Act, 2006, was not applicable in Jammu & Kashmir. However, once Article 370, which violated the rights of the Gujjar community, was abrogated in August 2019, the Gujjars got the rights guaranteed under the Indian Constitution. It was the Constitution of J&K which denied the due rights to Gujjars which were available under the Central laws, Mr Gupta pointed out.
Recalling the sequence of events, Mr Gupta said Omar Abdullah had become chief minister with the help of the Congress in January 2009 and remained in this position till late 2014.
He did not give these forest rights to Gujjars when he was on the top executive post in the state. Omar is telling lies and making false claims about giving rights to the Gujjars. The Gujjars automatically got these rights once the wall of Article 370 had been broken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, he added.
It is for the first time that nine seats have been reserved for Scheduled Tribes (STs) in the Legislative Assembly of J&K. This political reservation for ST community, to which Gujjars belong, was denied by all Abdullahs, be it Sheikh Abdullah, Farooq Abdullah or Omar Abdullah. As chief ministers of the state, none of the Abdullahs took any steps to empower the Gujjars, Gupta said.
The Gujjars were included in the category of Scheduled Tribes (STs) on April 19, 1991, when none of the Abdullahs was heading the state government, Mr Gupta pointed out. This denial of ST status till April 1991 was done by two generations of Abdullahs, Sheikh Abdullah and Farooq Abdullah. After getting the ST status, the Gujjar community made rapid progress as it benefited from the reservations.
The members of the Gujjar community got reservations in educational institutions as well as in jobs after getting the ST status, he added.
Omar is misleading the Gujjars when he claims that he will give rights to them after the assembly elections. His grandfather, his father and he himself denied all rights to the Gujjar community in their successive tenures as CMs, Gupta said. There was nothing that could have prevented the grant of forest rights to Gujjars had Omar wanted to do so as CM in his tenure. Omar himself was responsible for denial of all rights to the Gujjar community.
The Gujjars are now committed to vote for the BJP, a party which gave them political reservations. This is a cause of serious worry for Omar who wants to deny the BJP credit for empowerment of Gujjar, Gupta said.
Omar’s grandmother, Mohatarma Begum Akbar Jehan, was called Madr e Meharban and the Abdullahs pitched and projected her as a daughter of a Gujjar woman to garner votes. Despite this, they never did anything for the empowerment of the Gujjars and wanted the community to remain uneducated and backward, Mr Gupta said.
That Gujjars often voted en bloc for the NC at the time of elections but the party never gave them rights that were available under the Indian Constitution, he added.