The National Conference leader said the UP government’s move to prohibit halal-certified edible items in the state constitutes a decline in the democratic stands of our country, legally moving India away from the secular and pluralist moorings of its constitution.
Team Clarion
NEW DELHI — The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is obsessed with taking measures that are against the interests of the Muslims, National Conference leader and vice president Omar Abdullah has said. To bring home his point, he cited the recent Uttar Pradesh government’s order prohibiting halal-certified edible items in the state
Addressing a one-day workers’ convention in the Beerwah area of central Kashmir’s Budgam district on Wednesday, Omar Abdullah said his party was fighting for the restoration of Article 370 in the state as it does not want Jammu and Kashmir to experience what Uttar Pradesh already did.
“BJP is outrightly permitting discrimination against Muslims through laws, conflating vengeance with justice. It’s a matter of time before such a situation will come about in J&K if we don’t stop them and their cronies. Such laws coincide with the decline in the democratic stands of our country, legally moving India away from the secular and pluralist moorings of its constitution,” media reports reaching here quoted Omar Abdullah as saying.
The BJP, he cautioned, is obsessed with a divisive ideology, Omar said that the UP government had brought a new law that makes manufacturing, storage, and distribution of halal-certified products punishable. “Why are Muslims under BJP’s rule under direct line of fire? I want to ask those people who are overtly or covertly holding the BJP’s flag in Jammu and Kashmir, why don’t they raise their voices against it? What they are doing to the Muslims in UP, they will do the same to the Muslims here. So, we are fighting to save Article 370 and to restore our statehood so that what is being done to the Muslims in UP is not repeated here,” he said.
The tall claims of the ruling party at the Centre have proved to be exaggerated and its attempts to sell its August 5, 2019 decisions have been established as hollow, Omar asserted. “All their claims have turned out to be a bundle of lies. Thousands of vacancies remain unfilled. No concrete steps are being taken to adjust our educated youth, who are sitting in their homes. The fate of basic utility services is no better. The electricity crisis is far from over. Woes of people are deepening with each passing day by everyday diktats. The winter quota of firewood to mosques has also been decreased. Development and infrastructure projects are only present on paper, reality on the ground is contrary to claims. There is no accountability,” he said.
