The National Conference on Tuesday made a rare outreach to Kashmir’s civil society over its campaign seeking the restoration of statehood ahead of the ruling party’s proposed protest in Delhi.
The party, facing public criticism over its perceived inertia in pressuring Delhi to restore Jammu and Kashmir’s statehood, has decided to hit the streets over the issue and announced a protest on the first day of the monsoon session of Parliament on July 20.
The meeting with civil society at the Sher-i-Kashmir International Convention Centre on the banks of the Dal Lake is widely seen as an attempt by the party to mobilise public support for statehood after having virtually given up its principal demand for the restoration of Article 370. NC president Farooq Abdullah chaired the meeting, and chief minister Omar Abdullah also attended it.
Around 150 civil society members, including former bureaucrats, religious scholars, businessmen and trade union leaders, heeded the party’s call for the meeting, which adopted a resolution pressing the Centre to restore statehood.
“The gathering unanimously adopted a resolution calling upon the Union government to restore full statehood to Jammu and Kashmir without any further delay. The resolution reflects the collective and unanimous voice of the civil society representatives present at the meeting, reaffirming the broad-based demand for the immediate restoration of full statehood to Jammu and Kashmir,” the NC said in a
statement.
Omar thanked the representatives of civil society who accepted the invitation.
“The meeting was extremely productive & Dr Sahib (Farooq Abdullah) was able to get a lot of useful feedback and good suggestions. The meeting passed a unanimous resolution calling on the Union government to fulfil its promise and restore FULL statehood to J&K without further delay,” he said
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NC Rajya Sabha member Choudhary Mohammad Ramzan said it was not a party-specific meeting but an issue that concerned all. He regretted that the Centre did not fulfil its promise on restoring statehood.
“They had said they would do it immediately after elections. Even (solicitor-general) Tushar Mehta filed an affidavit before the Supreme Court in this regard but it has not happened. Enough is enough,” he said.