Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut has slammed former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah for his repeated chants seeking to restore Article 370. Raut said that Farooq can “go to Pakistan and implement” the controversial Article 370 that granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir.
“If Farooq Abdullah wants, he can go to Pakistan and implement Article 370 there,” news agency ANI quoted him as saying. “In India, there is no place for Article 370 and 35A,” Raut added.
Farooq had on Friday said that he won’t die until the constitutional rights of the people of the erstwhile state are restored. “I will not die until the rights of my people are given back. I am here to do something for the people and the day I will finish my work, I will leave this world,” he said.
Interestingly, Raut’s party Shiv Sena heads an alliance in Maharashtra of which the Congress is a constituent and that the grand old party had vociferously opposed the Modi government’s move to abrogate Jammu and Kashmir’s special status and bifurcate it into two Union Territories. The party was even divided into two camps when the Modi government ended the special status.
While senior party leaders including Rahul Gandhi have criticised the Centre for ending the special status to Jammu and Kashmir in the absence of an assembly in the state, several others including Deepender Hooda, Jyotiraditya Scindia (now in BJP), Milind Deora, Janardan Dwivedi, and others had welcomed the move.
Farooq, also the president of the National Conference, was recently appointed as the chairman of the just floated Peoples Alliance for the Gupkar Declaration. PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti is his deputy. The alliance’s objective is to restore the special status of Jammu and Kashmir.