J-K BJP hits back at Omar over 'communal divide' remark

BJP today hit back at National Conference working president Omar Abdullah for accusing the coalition government in the state of 'engineering communal divide'.
The party said that the NC leader's "aggressive posture and acts of instigation" might lead to the division of the state.
"Omar's aggressive posture and the act of instigating the people against the government through his presumption that Supreme Court would turn down Article 35A, biased policies of National Conference against Jammu and Ladakh regions may divide the people on communal and regional lines and lead to the division of the state.
"If it so happens, he(Omar) and his party (NC) will be responsible for this development," BJP State spokesperson Virender Gupta said.

Addressing a workers' rally at Kalakote in Rajouri district yesterday, the former Chief Minister accused the PDP-BJP government of dividing the society on communal lines to hide their "governance deficit and administrative inertia".
He had said his party would not allow the society to be divided for satiating the "nefarious agenda of communal forces".

Reacting to the statement, Gupta alleged NC has a history of playing communal politics and has acquired expertise in it to grab the political power.
"Right from the day of its first birth as Muslim Conference, it exploited Kashmiri Muslims against the Hindu Maharaja on communal lines and engineered 1931 riots targeting Kashmiri Pandits, resulting into their massacre and destruction of their property.

"The demand of special status (Article 370) in a country, that has a secular constitution and ethos of respecting and embracing all the faiths with the belief that all leads to the same Almighty, had communal connotation," the BJP leader said.
He said, "not allowing Hindu and Sikh refugees from Muzaffarabad (capital of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir) to settle in the Valley, exodus of Kashmiri Hindus and at present making their resettlement a difficult affair in the Valley, and not allowing establishment of Sainik Colony in the Valley, are the consequences of communal politics being pursued under the patronage of National Conference".

"Role of Omar and his party during Shri Amarnath land row in 2008, was a clear example of divisive politics of National Conference and other Kashmiri leaders," he alleged.
The BJP leader claimed that the discrimination with Jammu region, which has Hindu majority was a clear cut example of communal politics that is being played or was played by Kashmiri political leadership.