State Times News
UDHAMPUR: Raising question mark on the criminal silence of BJP on Article 35A, Panther Party’s State President and former MLA Balwant Singh Mankotia along with Dhaniram Atri and party workers lodged a strong protest at Salathia Chowk and burned the effigy of saffron party. He said Kashmir based political parties were united on Article 35A and getting support over the issue while BJP has maintained a criminal silence on 35A issue in State and asked Central Government to scrap this article for benefit of Jammu and Kashmir.
Mankotia while addressing the workers said that after chairing a meeting of all parties on Monday, Dr Farooq Abdullah has dared the Central Government to scrap Article 35A and face the consequences and revolt in Kashmir which according to him shall be more vigorous than Amarnath land row and former Omar Abdullah too giving contradictory statements. He reminded that last month, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has warned the central government that if any tampering with special status of Jammu and Kashmir would be done, there will be no one to uphold the Tricolour in Kashmir.
Mankotia questioned that if Kashmir centric parties are united on Article 35A issue then BJP is shying away to garner support of Jammu based political parties. He blamed that BJP has surrendered before PDP for the sake of power and recently Law Minister in coalition government has given statement on the support of Article 35A in State.
He alleged that to save coalition government in State, BJP has surrendered the national interest in State and 25 BJP MLAs have become messengers of PDP from Kashmir to New Delhi. During elections, saffron party demanded abrogation of Articles 35A and 370, and even promised the same in its election manifesto but unfortunately after assuming power, BJP has betrayed the mandate of people, regretted Mankotia.
