Date: June 16th 2008

Date: - 16.6.08

PTI | Jammu

Posted online: June 15, 2008

Raking up a sensitive issue ahead of the Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, BJP on Sunday demanded scrapping of article 370, holding it responsible for many ills afflicting the State including militancy and unemployment.

"We want that article 370 should be scrapped as it did not serve any purpose in the overall development of Jammu and Kashmir," BJP President Raj Nath Singh said at a meeting of the State unit of the Bhartiya Janata Yuva Morcha here.

He said that he would have been the first person to stand for strengthening of the article if it had brought about development in the State and eradicated unemployment.

"But unlike anything of the sort, this article only bred terror, fundamentalism, under-development, unemployment in the State besides failing to attract private and corporate investment in the valley," Singh said and demanded its immediate scrapping.

The BJP president said that people need to do a soul-searching over what they have got from article 370.

Lambasting the ruling Congress-PDP coalition in the State, he said that they have no eye for reality and are only "exploiting the masses with emotional and fundamentalist slogans."

Accusing the Government of ignoring the Jammu region on all fronts he said, "I ask Ghulam Nabi Azad and Mufti Mohammad Sayeed what good they have done for Jammu?"

Criticising State and Union Governments for their failure to stop the growing tentacles of terror in the country, Rajnath said that they don't have stringent laws to deal with the scourge.