'Headless chicken' consolidating alienation from people of India: Jaitley slams Cong on Art 370 stand

Former Union Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday said Congress would pay heavily for opposing measures to end special status to Jammu and Kashmir, saying the leadership of the party, which he referred to as "headless chicken", was determined to succeed in its race to the bottom.

Jaitley said the decision of the Congress, who suffered successive routs in elections, will further alienate the party from the countrymen.

"Headless chicken is further consolidating its alienation from the people of India. New India has changed. Only Congress does not realise this. The Congress leadership is determined to succeed in its race to the bottom," Jaitley wrote in a blog, calling the grand old party a "creator of Kashmir issue".

He also took a swipe at the Opposition for creating a ruckus over the scrapping of the special status of the state, saying that they made a "national integrity issue" into one on secularism.

Jaitley said Mehbooba Mufti's PDP and National Conference spoke the language of separatists in the Valley. "Their statements in New Delhi at times are re-assuring. But in Srinagar, they speak a different language. Their stand is influenced by the separatist environment," he said.

He also said India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had erred in its experiment to hand over special powers to the state, maintaining that successive governments' attempts to resolve the Kashmir issue only worsened the situation.

"The historic blunders of special status had cost the country politically and financially. Today, when history is being re-written, it proves that Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee's vision on Kashmir was the correct one and Panditji's dream solution has proved to be a failure."

"In the last seven decades, attempts to resolve the issue proved a disaster, PM Modi decided to follow an alternative approach. The present decision makes it clear that just as the rule of law prevails in other parts of the country, it will equally prevail in the Kashmir valley," he wrote.

He also said that the special status only led to rising terrorism and deteriorating situation in the Valley, giving Pakistan chances to exploit the situations. "It created a separatist psyche," he said.

"By 1989-90, the situation of J and K had gone out of control and separatism with terrorism picked up. Kashmiri pundits, an essential part of Kashmiriat, suffered such atrocities which only the Nazis had inflicted in the past. The ethnic cleansing took place and they had to move out." he wrote.

He lauded the Narendra Modi government for adopting an alternative, courageous path on the issue. "The decision to reverse the situation created by Panditji needed clarity, vision and determination. It also needed political courage. The Prime Minister has created history through his absolute clarity and determination," the former finance minister said.

Jaitley concluded that "total integration" of the state was the only way ahead to resolve the issue in the border state and said the move will pave way for the creation of lakhs of jobs and prosperity.

"The next logical step obviously is the total integration of the State. India's most beautiful State has not had investments from even the hotel chains. Consequently, there are no new jobs, no revenue for the State. These constitutional provisions are not cast in stone. They had to be removed/ diluted through the due process of law that is done now," he said.

Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday announced to abrogate Article 35A which gave special rights to residents of Jammu and Kashmir over land and diluted Article 370. He also announced to convert the state into two union territories - Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.