A BJP legislator on Wednesday said the Omar Abdullah government was neglecting her constituency for being “Hindu and nationalist”, fuelling an uproar in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly.
Speaking during Zero Hour, Kishtwar MLA Shagun Parihar accused the government of ignoring her constituency's development.
“Seventy per cent of the population in Kishtwar still lives in hilly areas. Even the benefits of central schemes are not reaching these people. Roads are in deplorable condition. The area is being deliberately neglected for being Hindu and Rashtrawadi (nationalist),” she said.
The remarks were bitterly contested by legislators, including minister Javid Dar and deputy chief minister Surinder Choudhary.
“The BJP legislator should refrain from making such divisive statements,” Dar said.
Choudhary said nationalism was not the forte of any particular community. “Not just Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs are also nationalists. Everyone is working for the betterment of the nation,” he said, urging Parihar's remarks to be expunged.
Parihar defended her remarks and claimed that PDP legislators also accused Hindus of following a “divide and rule policy”, but nobody objected to them.
Speaker Abdul Rahim Rather called for restraint and reminded the BJP lawmaker to maintain the decorum of the House. “You are a first-time MLA. Words should be used with care and intelligence,” he said. “You have to achieve big goals, and for that, focus on hard work and constructive discussion.”
Parihar’s remarks mask an irony. Kishtwar is part of the Muslim-majority Chenab Valley, but out of its eight MLAs, six are Hindus. In Kishtwar district, too, Muslims constitute 57 per cent of the population, but all three MLAs are Hindus.
The Centre faced accusations of gerrymandering in the Chenab Valley through a controversial delimitation exercise that allegedly weakened the electoral weight of the Muslims. Kishtwar was allegedly turned into a Hindu-majority constituency by adding Hindu-dominated areas of the Inderwal constituency.