Congress demands full Statehood for IIOJK ahead of Assembly elections
New Delhi: The Congress on Friday demanded full Statehood for Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) Ahead of Assembly elections.
According to Kashmir Media Service, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge in a post on X said the recent moves by the Indian government have only added to the powers of the lieutenant governor in occupied Jammu and Kashmir, “making a mockery of the powers of a duly elected state government”.
He said, “The Indian National Congress welcomes the announcement of elections in Jammu & Kashmir. The Supreme Court had set a deadline for the conduct of the elections, and we had demanded that elections must be held at the earliest to secure Constitutional rights and put a full stop to this mechanism of being ‘ruled by bureaucracy’.”
The Modi government wants to control the revived state administration of Jammu and Kashmir, therefore, in July they gave more powers to the LG by amending the Rules under Section 55 of the J&K Reorganisation Act, 2019, he said.
Now, the bureaucrats have also been suddenly shuffled, hours before the announcement of the polls, Kharge added.
“In the past decade, the Modi government has performed many electoral experiments in the occupied territory, but the people have time and again, rejected BJP’s undemocratic tactics trampling upon their Constitutional rights,” he said.
Ladakh, which had four assembly seats in the original Jammu and Kashmir legislature, will now be without any directly elected MLA, he pointed out.
In a post in Hindi on X about the Haryana poll dates announcement, Kharge said, “In the last 10 years, the double engine BJP government in Haryana has given nothing but deceit to the people. Our farmers and youth – both are suffering. Unemployment in the state is at a record high. There have been many recruitment scams. Law and order is at a standstill.”
