AMRITSAR: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Lal Krishan Advani has said the situation in Jammu and Kashmir was not congenial for holding elections in the slate.

Reacting to Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao’s statement that elections could be held in the troubled border state in the beginning of next year, he told a news conference here last week that if the government was adamant to hold the polls there, people who had been forced to move out of Kashmir valley and other parts of the state because of terrorism were given the right of postal ballot.

He said a special law could be enacted to enable the people who had migrated from the valley in and after.1989 to exercise their postal ballot.

It might be an extraordinary demand, but it should be considered in the light of the fact that the government employees were being paid their salaries even where they were not working at the places of their postings, he added.

Advani said his party was of the view that militants were still very active in the state and the administration had not been able to control it.

The administration also did not have any control over its own officers, he asserted, He said one touchstone for judging the situation in Jammu and Kashmir was the government’s inability to ensure that the migrants return to their homes and live with honor and security.

Asked if the elections could be free and fair even if the migrants were given the night to postal ballot in the state, he said it was for the chief election commissioner to exercise his full authority in this regard.

The BJP leaders said they did not think elections in Jammu and Kashmir would help improve the situation as happened in Punjab, Saying the circumstances in the two states were different.

About the Central Government wooing leaders of the militant outfit Jammu and Kashmir Liberation .Front (JKLF) he said the approach was wrong.

Appeasement of hte wrongdoers never pays, he asserted, He said if elections were held in Jammu and Kashmir his party would participate in them.

Reacting to a query on the possibility of his party’s alliance with the Akali Dal (Badal) in the future the light of the BJP activities honoring its president Parkash Singh Badal here after the victory of his candidate in Ajnala bye- elections, Advani said nothing could be said at this time,

In the same breath he said conscientious efforts were being made by Badal for quite some time to distance himself from the forces of terrorism and separatism, which ‘was a welcome trend,

 

Article extracted from this publication >> August 26, 1994