Article 370 protests: BJP MLAs hold ‘parallel session’ after evictions

SRINAGAR: BJP MLAs held a parallel “session” Friday on J&K Assembly lawns after nearly a dozen party members were evicted by the Speaker and others walked out over continued opposition to the passage of the resolution demanding the restoration of special status, revoked in 2019 with Article 370’s abrogation.
The protests followed Thursday’s bedlam in J&K’s inaugural assembly session as a Union territory (UT) when BJP MLAs had clashed with marshals after being ordered out by Speaker Abdul Rahim Rather of NC.
The standoff appeared to deepen Friday when leader of opposition Sunil Sharma of BJP warned the parallel “session” should not be taken lightly and threatened to run a “parallel govt” if the behaviour of the Omar Abdullah-led National Conference (NC) govt doesn’t change.
Sharma cited assurances by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah about restoring J&K’s statehood and accused NC of creating a situation to ensure the move was thwarted.
“NC moved a resolution against the decision taken by Parliament on Aug 5, 2019, showing its separatism in the House. I challenge Omar Abdullah to show where J&K’s special status was mentioned in the Indian Constitution. If he can, I will quit politics,” Sharma said. He termed Article 370 a temporary provision that is now “history” and accused Rather of indulging in “unconstitutional acts”.
Tempers ran high at the parallel “session”, which followed the eviction of 11 BJP MLAs by Rather after they tried to storm the well of the House to demand the rollback of the resolution passed earlier this week. This was followed by a walkout by the remaining 17 BJP lawmakers.
“The way our members were marshalled out is hooliganism. We had a lot of hopes from the Speaker because of his experience, but the way we were treated is unfortunate,” BJP MLA Pavan Gupta said. Fellow party legislator Sham Lal Sharma presided over as “Speaker”.
“This is the real assembly. Let’s discuss issues here,” BJP’s RS Pathania said. His colleague Chander Prakash Ganga described as “separatists” those who had brought the posters to the House Thursday calling for the return of Article 370.
Inside the assembly, other MLAs went through business normally, raising issues and putting forth a vote of thanks on LG Manoj Sinha’s address at the start of the session that began on Nov 4 and concluded Friday.
Bandipora Congress MLA Nizamuddin Bhat pressed for relaxations in employee verifications, seeking CM Omar’s intervention and pointing out that many youths had been denied govt jobs due to alleged criminal records of distant relatives.
Peoples Conference chief and MLA Sajad Lone described the police verifications as a “sword over our youths”. “In the rest of the country, an individual is verified. But here (J&K), the whole family, even extended family, is verified,” Lone said.
PDP’s Muhammad Rafiq Naik called for a review of reservations, which now aggregate to over 70%. “Please have a look at the policy. Where will the general category go?” Naik asked, adding Kashmiris shouldn’t be labelled “separatists, terrorists and Pakistanis”.