‘Congress govt surrendered part of J&K to benefit a few families’

LUCKNOW: Rajya Sabha member Ghulam Ali Khatana on Sunday said that part of Jammu & Kashmir was “deliberately” surrendered to Pakistan by the then Congress government so that the Pasmanda (backward) Muslims could not challenge the political might of an elite political class, primarily comprising “one particular family”.
Addressing the gathering at Pasmanda convention organised by the UP BJP Minority Front in Lucknow, Khatana, who was nominated to the upper house by President Droupadi Murmu last month, slammed the Congress and former PM late Jawaharlal Nehru for framing Article 370 for J&K for the benefit of a few families in the north Indian state.
“They just wanted princely status for a few families in the state,” said Khatana, who has been a functionary of Muslim Rashtriya Manch, an affiliate of the RSS.
The convention, which was organized almost three months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi pitched for social and economic emancipation of Pasmanda Muslims, was attended by a host of senior BJP functionaries and UP ministers, including deputy chief minister Brajesh Pathak and Danish Azad Ansari.
The MP said that the Congress and the previous governments in J&K did not amend Article 370 which would have benefited the socially depressed classes. He recalled how Modi in December 2013 – months before becoming the PM for the first time – had promised to “empower” Pasmanda Muslims politically. “After the BJP formed the government at the Centre, it reserved nine seats in the J&K assembly for backward Muslims,” said Khatana, himself from Gujjar Bakarwal sub-caste within the Pasmanda community.
“There is no threat to Islam. Muslims are not away from BJP...,” he asserted, castigating the opposition parties for creating rift within various communities by raising “irrelevant” issues related to Islam.
National general secretary of the BJP Muslim Morcha, Sabir Ali, said the BJP believed in “distribution” and not “division”. “Political parties which have been claiming themselves to be secular have not been able to do their bit for the Muslim community. Muslims need to go with the BJP which speaks about all 135 crore people,” he said.
Ali said the Muslims could never be “traitorous” for the country. “The opposition has been peddling rumours about the government’s malicious intentions about the Muslim community,” he said.
UP BJP Muslim Morcha chief Kunwar Basit Ali said that the minority should come forward in making the saffron outfit stronger in the run up to local bodies elections in UP and in 2024 Lok Sabha elections. He said only 8% of the Muslims voted for the BJP in the recently held UP assembly elections. “This was much below expectations considering that around 30% of the total beneficiaries of various government schemes are Muslims,” he said.