KT NEWS SERVICE JAMMU, Jan 21: Accusing the Congress for adopting a contradictory stance on the setting up of a Delimitation Commission, the state unit of Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) has alleged that the Congress is responsible for regional disparities.
Addressing a gathering of the party activists in Kathua, the senior leader and former Union Minister Professor Chaman Lal Gupta said the Congress party was responsible for regional disparities as the party in the state was directly and indirectly in power with two third majority from 1953 to 1975 but still it did nothing to remove the regional disparities.
He further said that the separate status of Jammu and Kashmir is being used to cripple rights of the people and create wedge between the state and rest of country.
Prof Gupta pointed out that to curtail the democratic rights of the people, the term of state Assembly has been fixed six years while the term of the Union Parliament has been fixed five years.
"In the rest of India to have Panchayati Raj and empower the local bodies constitutional provision were made through 73rd and 74th amendments but these provisions have not been extended to J&K and strange tactics were being used to make mockery of the whole democratic process", alleged Prof Gupta.
The BJP leader pointed out that even after the 60 years, the people of Jammu region had been subjugated by depriving of their political rights, adding that the voters strength and the geographical area of Jammu region is bigger than that of Kashmir valley but still this region has given just 37 Assembly seats against 46 to Kashmir valley.
He stressed upon the people to create strong public opinion against all those who are allegedly responsible for "political slavery" of Jammu and Ladakh regions.
