New Delhi: A day after the Central Government amended and notified land laws for the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir by omitting the protection earlier available to it's 'permanent residents', the Congress party termed it a move of "obstinacy politics".
The party asserted that the new laws don't even have those "minimal safeguards" which other states like Himachal Pradesh and Uttrakhand have in their land laws.
While addressing the media, on Wednesday, Congress senior leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi said, "We are opposed to it because it does not follow elementary canons of participatory democracy. You are doing the politics of obstinacy, of domination. Why? Because you have a Lieutenant-Governor sitting over there, he has the power, so he'll do it? What is the degree of dialogue with you, exchanges of views, meetings, or even minor attempts of meetings?"
Center has shown 'politics of obstinacy' by amending J&K land laws: Congress He further added, "Even the minimal safeguards on this subject of land, which are found in several other states of India, are not here. It is wrong to paint J&K as unique. Those safeguards, limitations, or exceptions can be found in Uttrakhand, Himachal, and North-eastern state, but not here."
In the fresh notification, the Ministry of Home Affairs has omitted the precondition of "being a permanent resident of the State" from Section 17 of the Jammu and Kashmir Development Act that deals with the disposal of land in the UT.
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The notification will be called the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization (Adaptation of Central Laws) Third Order, 2020. It came into force with immediate effect. However, agricultural land can still only be purchased by the farmers of Jammu and Kashmir.
"The only exception is agricultural land, which is supposedly exempt, but there are possibilities and provision for even relaxing that as well. Therefore, this Government has shown itself a Government of obstinacy of ramming down decisions through the throat on the grounds of ego issues," Singhvi alleged.
The People's Alliance for Gupkar Declaration described the Center's move as a "huge betrayal" and a "massive assault" on the rights of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
On Tuesday, National Conference leader Omar Abdullah tweeted, "Unacceptable amendments to the land ownership laws of J&K. Even the tokenism of domicile has been done away with when purchasing non-agricultural land and transfer of agricultural land has been made easier. J&K is now up for sale and the poorer small landholding owners will suffer."
In another tweet, he added, "There's much confusion about whether Ladakh has been included in the new land ownership order. I don't know what would be worse: that Ladakh has also been betrayed by the Centre or that only J&K has been put up for sale, thus betraying the centre's true intentions and bias."
While PDP Chief Mehbooba Mufti termed the move as "nefarious designs" of the Central Government to "disempower" the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
She tweeted, "Yet another step that's part of GoI's nefarious designs to disempower and disenfranchise people of J&K. From the unconstitutional scrapping of Article 370 to facilitating loot of our natural resources and finally putting land in J&K up for sale."
"After failing on all fronts to provide roti and Rojgar to people, BJP is creating such laws to whet the appetite of the gullible electorate. Such brazen measures reinforce the need of people of all three provinces of Jammu and Kashmir to fight unitedly," she stated in her tweet.
