STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: Demanding withdrawal of Land Laws (Amendment) Bill, independent Member Legislative Assembly (MLA) from Udhampur, Pawan Gupta on Thursday said that the decision of the PDP-BJP Government to send the Bill to Select Committee will boost the separatist cause in Jammu and Kashmir State.
“The Bill will boost the separatist cause in Jammu and Kashmir and ensure that separatism becomes the legitimate part of the legislative and administrative activity in the State,” Pawan told reporters here on Thursday.
He added that the Bill will further fortify the grip of separatists on the politics of the State and act as catalyst in taking Jammu and Kashmir away from India.
“The reference of the Bill to the Select Committee has ensured that a sword continues to hang on the neck of the nationalist constituencies in Jammu and Kashmir, as also on the free enterprise to promote trade and business of the people in the State,” he said.
“It is intriguing the BJP chose to be a party in framing and approving of this Bill on June 23, 2016, the day the nation was paying tributes to the martyrdom of Shyama Prasad Mookherjee,” former BJP leader said adding that the adoption of this Bill on this day by the BJP-PDP Cabinet was not a mere lapse but an act enacted to tell the nation that the ruling elite in the State had no regard for the patriot, who sacrificed his life in the state itself in 1953 to get the discriminatory state subject laws weakened and bridge the politico-constitutional gulf between the State and New Delhi. He questioned the present dispensation that why it took the decision for enactment of the controversial Bill in haste despite the fact that no need was felt to bring such an enactment ever since the regime of Sheikh Mohd Abdullah.
‘The Bill practically bars the business and trade ventures of interested parties operating in rest of India with the traders and business community of Jammu and Kashmir,” he said.
It should be known that whatever legitimate trade and industrial activity has survived in the State despite the crippling blows of terrorism and the pro-separatist Kashmiri leadership the private enterprise rooted in Jammu did not allow the economy of the state to die, he said adding that the Bill will be a knocking blow to business and trade of Jammu.
It should also be noted that the Jammu which have been at the receiving end of employment activity will suffer further on the same account as the passing of the Bill will add immensely to the unemployment pool in Jammu Province.
“I also warn the nation that the passing of the Bill will make the availability of land and facilities for the security related purposes almost impossible and hence increase the degree of difficulty for the conduct of security related activities in the State,” he asserted.
It will only aggravate the already deteriorating security situation in the state and cause great difficulty for Corporate Offices and Nationalized Banks which are operating in the state.
If the Bill takes the shape of an Act, it will defeat the provisions of Art 31 of the Indian Constitution, he said. “I urge all concerned in the government in the State and Centre to realise the dangerous implications of this Bill and hence abandon it instead of incubating it in Select committee to be taken out of the closet at the whims and requirements of separatists in the State,” he said.
