Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Monday said the prime minister appears amenable to holding talks with stake holders in a bid to arrest the deteriorating situation in the Valley.
However, she cautioned, that ‘an atmosphere needs to be created’ for a dialogue.
“Talks cannot happen amid stone pelting and firing of bullets,” she told reporters after a 20-minute meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at his residence.
At the meeting, she invoked former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s policy on Kashmir, and said the thread should be picked up from where he had left off – an apparent suggestion for talks with separatists.
“The prime minister has an intention of holding talks after the situation becomes normal,” Mehbooba told reporters.
Kashmir is in the grip of increased violence since the April 9 by-poll for the Srinagar Lok Sabha constituency. The security forces are under intense pressure as they are faced with almost daily protests and stone-pelting.
The army and the Central Reserve Police Force have received some praise for showing restraint under provocation, and also come under criticism, especially after a video showed a civilian tied to a jeep as a human shield as it drove through the streets to avoid being attacked.
“Talks are the only option,” Mehbooba said. “How long can you have a confrontation?”
“Talks with Hurriyat (Conference) had taken place when Vajpayee ji was the prime minister and L K Advani ji was the deputy prime minister. We need to start from where Vajpayee ji had left, otherwise there is no scope of the situation in Jammu and Kashmir improving,” she said.
“Modi ji said he is following the footsteps of Vajpayee ji. Vajpayee ji’s policy was reconciliation, not of confrontation,” Mehbooba added.
Referring to the increase in stone-pelting incidents in the Valley, she said there were some young people who were ‘disillusioned’ while some were being ‘instigated’, often through the use of social media sites such as Facebook and Whatsapp.
Rising tensions between the coalition partners, the People’s Democratic Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party, over the handling of the security situation in Kashmir also came up at the meeting.
The coalition also came under strain when the PDP lost a seat in the recently held MLC polls when an independent MLA voted in favour of BJP candidate Vikram Randhawa, leading to his victory.
“Whatever happened should not have taken place. But this is an internal matter and we will resolve it with the BJP,” she said.
She also raised the Indus water treaty issue, saying it was causing a huge loss of Rs 20,000 crore to the state.
Mehbooba said the prime minister assured her that efforts would be made to see how the state would be compensated for this.
The Jammu and Kashmir chief minister said the situation in Kashmir would be discussed in a meeting of the Unified Command on Tuesday.
The General Officer Commanding-in-Chief Northern Command, General Officer Commanding 16 Corps, GOC 15 corps, Director General of Police J&K, Inspector General Border Security Force, IG CRPF, senior officers of the Intelligence Bureau and Research and Analysis Wing and Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh will also participate in the meeting in Srinagar.
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Centre, Mufti govt's policies on Kashmir detrimental to nation: Congress
The Congress on Monday said the waysituation in Jammu and Kashmir has been handled by the Centreand the PDP-BJP government in the state it is detrimental toboth national security and national integration.
Asking the Centre to clearly spell out its Kashmirpolicy, the opposition party also said that J&K Chief MinisterMehbooba Mufti's remarks, after meeting the prime ministerthat 'we are where Vajpayee left us', are a ‘damningindictment’ of a complete lack of policy towards Kashmir.
“The manner in which the BJP-led NDA (National Democratic Alliance) government at theCentre and the PDP-BJP government in the state have handled theKashmir situation is completely detrimental to both the causeof national security as also national integration.
“And you are seeing the manifestations of this fallaciouspolicy play itself out in other parts of India as well,”Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari said.
He said it is high time the central governmentarticulates, in clear terms, its policy towards the situationin Kashmir and asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi tointrospect as to what has gone wrong since 2014 that peoplehave not turned up to exercise their franchise.
“Prime Minister Modi should ask himself this questionthat what has gone wrong between 2014 and 2017 that a mere 7per cent people turned out to vote,” he said.
Tewari said the one remark that the state chief ministermade during her brief interaction sums up the entire essenceof the meeting with the prime minister.
On Mufti's statement ‘we are where Vajpayee left us’, theCongress leader said, “There could not have been a more damningindictment of a complete lack of policy which the NDA-BJPgovernment and the prime minister has qua the situation inJ&K. Nothing evidences this more than the extremely poorturnout in the Srinagar bypoll.”
He said the postponement of the Parliamentary bypoll inAnantnag, the continuing tension on the Indo-Pakistan border,the fragile internal security situation in the Kashmir Valleyand the ever increasing and deepening contradictions betweenthe BJP-PDP alliance government in J&K describe the state ofaffairs in the state.
Tewari said even after the worst phase of militancy inKashmir between 1989 and 1996 when assembly elections wereheld, the poll percentage was 53.92 per cent in 1996. In 2002,it was still 43.70 per cent during the NDA regime and in 2008during the United Progressive Alliance it went up to 61.16 per cent.
During the 2014 elections, polling improved to 65.52 percent, but during the current by-elections it fell to a mere 7per cent and when a re-poll is ordered the voter turnout is amere 2 per cent.
In contrast to these three years, Tewari claimed, duringthe National Conference-Congress government in J&K, the LoC remained relativelystable all though the six-year period and internal securitysituation barring a few months in 2010 remained relativelynormal.
He said the interlocutor process was put in place by theUPA where there was a broad outreach to all spectrums ofpeople across the board in J&K and all-round development wasthe prevailing ‘mantra’.
The Congress leader claimed that many of the projectswhich the prime minister has inaugurated, all were conceivedand substantially implemented during those six years of theUPA government at the Centre and the NC-Congress government inthe state.
Meanwhile, expressing concern over the situation in Kashmir, Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said the Governor’s rule in Jammu and Kashmir is not a solution and there will beno peace in the state till the time the PDP-BJP government isthere.
“The Governor's rule is not a solution. They shouldchange their way. There will be no peace in Jammu and Kashmirtill there is the rule of BJP and PDP,” the former state chiefminister said.
Image: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a meeting at the latter's house. Photograph: Press Information Bureau
