New Delhi: Senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram Monday said the splitting of Jammu and Kashmir was a fatal error and it sent a “very wrong signal” to other states.
“You are dismembering a state. You think you are doing it to J&K but what you are doing to J&K using these provisions, misinterpreting, in fact I can go to say mischievously misinterpreting the provisions, what can be done to J&K, can be done to any other state,” Chidambaram said in the Rajya Sabha.
He was taking part in a discussion on the move to repeal Article 370 of the Constitution that gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir and to divide the state into two Union Territories: Jammu and Kashmir with an Assembly and Ladakh without one. “I appeal to the Home Minister to, even at this late stage, stop, pause. Reflect on what you are doing,” he added.
Speaking before him, the Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Ghulam Nabi Azad, accused the Modi government of trying to disintegrate the country. He said that with Monday’s decision, the number of states in the country would come down from 29 to 28.
“We went from having a Prime Minister to Chief Minister. Now we’re at Lt. Governor. You’ve made the Governor a clerk. You’ve made Jammu and Kashmir a non-entity. Bring this to your state and see what happens,” he told Home Minister Amit Shah. Azad warned the Modi government: “Don’t be intoxicated with power.”