Opposition National Conference (NC), Saturday ridiculed Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti’s wishy-washy claim of getting an ‘assurance’ from the Prime Minister Modi to protect the special status of the state.

“The CM’s claim stood exposed as a brazen lie as senior BJP leaders have gone on record to say that there has been no change in BJP’s total and complete opposition to Article 35-A and Article 370,” NC, General Secretary, Ali Muhammad Sagar and Provincial President Nasir Aslam Wani said, in a statement issued here.

“Post Mehbooba Mufti’s meeting with the Prime Minister, senior BJP functionaries have made it abundantly clear that BJP will continue to actively seek ways and means to strike down Article 35-A and there had been no change in their stand on the issue. This has yet again exposed Mehbooba Mufti and her party and their inexhaustible reservoir of lies,” the NC leaders said.

The leaders said Mehbooba Mufti’s Government was being used as a political vehicle for the constitutional erosion of J&K’s special status.

 “It is Mehbooba Mufti and PDP who have facilitated this assault on Article 35-A. PDP’s ‘Agenda of the Alliance’ has been thrown into the dustbin by the BJP. BJP has formally distanced itself from every single promise made by both parties in the document. It is ridiculous and laughable that Mehbooba Mufti still refers to this disowned, abandoned and meaningless scam of a document,” the NC leaders added.

“What was the State Government doing till the precise moment the Attorney General of India refused to file a counter affidavit to the PIL against 35-A? If PDP has in fact managed to get BJP to agree on a ‘status-quo’ on J&K’s special status (as stated in their ‘Agenda of the Alliance’), why didn’t the Central Government go on record to defend Article 35-A? The Attorney General rather said the Central Government was in favour of a ‘larger debate’ on the issue. That statement in itself exposes PDP’s hypocrisy”, the NC leaders added.

The leaders asked Mehbooba Mufti to stop fooling the people of the State and come clean on her active role in this elaborate and pre-meditated plan to rob the State of its special status and identity.

“For how long will Mehbooba Mufti and PDP fool the people of the State? They want to govern with the BJP but also simultaneously work with the opposition in opposing her own alliance partner and its longstanding ideological agenda. Her drama of trying to evolve a consensus is nothing short of a smokescreen to divert the people’s attention from her own complicity while PDP and BJP work together to revoke J&K’s special status,” they added.

The leaders reminded Mehbooba Mufti of repeated warnings and reminders by NC Working President, Omar Abdullah, both inside and outside the State Assembly, about BJP’s active and covert plan to launch a judicial assault on Article 35-A through hitherto unknown NGOs known to be affiliated with the RSS.

“Despite these repeated warning and red-flags raised by our party, Mehbooba Mufti and her Law Minister, under PDP’s quid-pro-quo arrangement with the BJP, chose inaction and obfuscation on this crucial issue. They provided these NGOs with an open playing field by being callous and also deliberately mounting an inadequate and grossly deficient legal representation to defend Article 35-A. The disastrous lack of quality legal defence by the PDP-BJP Govt has been highlighted by the Supreme Court as well in a similar case under its purview where the State’s legal team failed to even conceive a basic affidavit explaining its position,” the leaders stated.

“National Conference will not hesitate to protest in every nook and corner of the State if the PDP-BJP Government continues with its nefarious plan to attack the State’s Special Status. We are reaching out and spreading awareness about the disastrous repercussions of any misadventure on Article 35-A and will work with civil society groups, traders’ associations and all likeminded organizations to mount a united and strong opposition to such evil designs by the Mehbooba Mufti Government,” the leaders threatened.

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