Former Union Minister Smriti Irani. File
| Photo Credit: PTI
Former Union Minister Smriti Irani on Friday (August 23, 2024) asked if the Congress supported the National Conference’s agenda of “breaking India”. She described the pact between the two parties for the Jammu & Kashmir Assembly election as an “unholy alliance” forged to pursue power.
At a press conference, Ms. Irani said the coming together of the Congress and the National Conference had raised several questions. “The National Conference speaks of a different flag for Jammu & Kashmir, the party has publicly announced that it will reinstate Article 370 and Article 35A. Does the Congress party support the National Conference agenda of breaking India?” she asked.
The BJP leader said the National Conference talked about Line of Control trade, while Pakistan continued to nurture terrorism and an ecosystem aligned with terrorists. In such a situation, she wondered whether the Congress supported “the Pakistani-agenda, that had been pronounced on many platforms, of creating unrest in J&K”. She also asked if the Congress party supported reinstatements of people – whose relatives were involved in terror activities and stone-pelting – in government jobs.
“Does the Congress party, in giving support to the National Conference, want to push the economy of J&K back into the hands of a few families whose corruption bled the taxpayers of India, does it support that the National Conference’s politics of discrimination between Jammu and the Valley; dangerous and divisive politics of giving autonomy to Kashmir…,” the former Union Minister said, also asking if the Congress wanted Srinagar’s Shankaracharya Hill to be known as Takht-e-Sulaiman and Hari Parbat as Kooh-e-Maran.
She added, “The Congress needs to answer if the National Conference’s agenda of restoration of Article 370 is acceptable to the party, does it also mean that it stands against reservation and support the National Conference’s promise of ending reservation for Dalits, Gujjars, Bakarwals, and Pahari communities. We as one nation has one Constitution and one flag, does the Congress party believe not in one Constitution, but two symbols, two heads, and two constitutions?”
