In a statement issued from Party Head Office, NC General Secretary Ali Muhammad Sagar and Provincial President Nasir Aslam Wani said “Mehbooba Mufti’s wishy-washy claim of getting an alleged assurance from the Prime Minister stood exposed as a brazen lie by Senior BJP Leaders who 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.”
“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 Senior NC leaders said in the statement.
The NC 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 Senior 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 Senior Leaders added.