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Updated: Apr 05, 2016 10:11 IST

Kashmiri Pandits are disappointed over their exclusion from the new PDP-BJP government that assumed charge in Jammu and Kashmir on Monday.

No Kashmiri Pandit has found a place in J-K’s council of ministers since 2005, when Raman Mattoo, an independent from Srinagar’s Habba Kadal constituency, was made a minister in the PDP-Congress coalition.

“We had high hopes from the BJP. The expectation had increased after Prime Minister Narendra Modi assumed power,” said Surinder Raina, a member of the Jammu-based civil society. The BJP had repeatedly backed the community and made their welfare a political issue.

“There has been no representation from the community which was politically disempowered, physically cleansed from their habitat and left to suffer dislocation. This shows complete apathy of the political class, irrespective of political divide, towards the community,” Sushil Pandit, an activist with Roots in Kashmir, said.