Amarnath land: Get ready for sacrifices, says Advani

Raising the pitch of the party’s agitation over the issue of land allotment to the Amarnath shrine board, BJP leader LK Advani today asked the party cadre to get ready for struggle and to make sacrifices.

“On August 9 (1942), Gandhiji not only told the British to leave the country. He also told the people of India to ‘Do or Die’. I have come to tell you that in this agitation you should remember this slogan. Get ready for the struggle, get ready to make sacrifices,” Advani told a rally of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) workers.

Advani likened the ongoing agitation in Jammu for revocation of the Amarnath land allotment cancellation order to the agitation launched by Jan Sangh ideologue Shyama Prasad Mukherjee 55 years ago for removal of special privileges for the state.

Reminiscing Mukherjee’s contribution, Advani said, “Had Mukherjee not made the sacrifice, one could not have been able to fly the tricolour there (in Jammu & Kashmir),” he said.

He urged the party to fully endorse whatever decision the Sri Amarnath Sangharsh Samiti (SASS), which is spearheading the agitation over the land transfer issue, takes on the issue. “This is a question of nation’s integrity and stability...This is not Jammu’s struggle, it is for the whole of India,” he said.

Meanwhile, the samiti decided to continue its stir after its talks with the all-party team failed to make any headway. The two sides decided to hold another round of talks. “The agitation in Jammu will continue,” Leela Karan Sharma, convenor of the samiti, reporters  after the over hour-long first round of talks with the all-party team led by Home Minister Shivraj Patil.

"The talks today were inconclusive. We will meet again," Sharma said adding "no new proposals" have been made to resolve the crisis.