india

Updated: Aug 12, 2019 02:36 IST

Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu on Sunday backed the scrapping of special status under Article 370 to Jammu and Kashmir, saying it was in the interest of the nation and should not be treated as a political issue.

It was the need of the hour and people of the country should stand with their counterparts in J&K, he said here at the release of a book on his two-year term in office titled “Listening, Learning & Leading”, by Union home minister Amit Shah. Naidu said Shah was being appreciated for the passage of the bill.

“Now that the bill is passed, I can speak...that (abrogation) is the need of the hour. Its a good thing,” Naidu, who is also Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, said.

Naidu said abrogation “is in the interest of the nation, for its future, for its security, for its safety. I can say that as a Vice President with considerable experience in public life and now the Parliament has voted it also.” “We should all think in terms of national interest rather than party interest. Article 370 should not be treated as a political issue but as a national issue that Kashmir is an integral part of India.”

Whatever problems are faced by the people of Kashmir, we have to stand by them and “assuage their feelings and see to it that steps are taken to restore normalcy” and that the development agenda is implemented at the earliest, Naidu said.

Referring to a media report, he said Parliament had earlier discussed the scrapping of Article 370 in 1964, with three members from Kashmir calling for its removal saying the state did not benefit from it. Those who spoke on the bill included Ram Manohar Lohia. “So, irrespective of parties, everybody supported the resolution... Still it could not happen which is a different thing. You must remember history,” he added.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)