Srinagar: Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly on Friday called the National Conference (NC) resolution on Article 370 “unconstitutional” and “undemocratic”. He also termed the eviction of BJP legislators from the House following the protest over the resolution as “the darkest day for democracy”.
For the last three days, the key BJP legislators protested in the 90-member Assembly and entered the well of the House, demanding the resolution, which was passed on Wednesday, be withdrawn.
On Friday, as the House gathered for the last day of the maiden session, the opposition members continued with their protest while NC legislator Javaid Baig started delivering the motion of thanks. This prompted Speaker Abdul Rahim Rather to order the removal of some of the legislators for causing din in the House. Following the order, the remaining BJP members staged a walkout in protest.
Later, the BJP legislators mimicked the assembly proceedings outside the legislative complex by holding a ‘parallel’ assembly to register their protest. The MLAs sat in a circle under the open sky on the lawn with BJP legislator Sham Lal Sharma hosting the proceedings as ‘Speaker’.
Condemning their removal from the House, a BJP MLA Pavan Gupta described the treatment met out with them by the Speaker as “unfortunate” saying their hopes were dashed as they expected him to be experienced for running the House. According to him, peace returned to the Valley and people were happy after Article 370 was annulled in August 2019.
Another BJP MLA R S Pathania described their assembly as “real” for discussing the issues of public
Speaking to the media outside the assembly, BJP legislator Sharma accused the speaker of enforcing “martial law” to silence the opposition in the assembly.
“For the past three days, the Speaker, Abdul Rahim Rather, who is meant to be the custodian of the House, has instead acted as a spokesperson of a particular party, the National Conference,” he said.
“He is trying to silence the voice of the opposition—those who have been elected to this assembly. We believe that all actions taken so far are illegal, unconstitutional, and undemocratic,” he alleged.
Opposing the resolution passed by the Legislative Assembly on the restoration of special status for the erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir, the BJP MLA from Padder-Nagseeni in Kishtwar said that there can be no debate on Article 370, for it is history.
“The Speaker himself drafted the resolution for a particular party, which has been passed. We oppose this resolution as it is illegal, unconstitutional, and undemocratic. We demand it be withdrawn,” Sharma added.
According to him, the Assembly is not above Parliament or the Supreme Court, which has upheld the abrogation of Article 370.
“We believe this assembly is meant for the welfare of the people. Yesterday, our members were manhandled by marshals on the Speaker's orders, and we wanted a debate on that. The same tactics have been repeated with the use of marshals. We are sitting here in protest, running a parallel assembly against this Speaker,” he added.
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