BJP opposition Leader Vijender Gupta. (Express Photo by Prem Nath Pandey, File) BJP opposition Leader Vijender Gupta. (Express Photo by Prem Nath Pandey, File)

POINTING OUT that the situation in Kashmir Valley is not congenial for holding a dialogue at present, the Jammu and Kashmir unit of the BJP on Friday asked those invoking Atal Behari Vajpayee for initiating peace talks with separatists and Pakistan whether the former Prime Minister was “successful in his venture’’.

“…Was he successful in his venture? Neither the separatists nor Pakistan stopped their agenda for creating disturbances in Kashmir (despite Vajpayee’s efforts to initiate a dialogue),” state BJP spokesperson Virender Gupta said in a statement issued here.

Instead, Gupta said, “they tried to inflict more injuries to India”. Those who support a dialogue with separatists should “also recall Pakistan’s attack in Kargil, and terrorists’ attack on Indian Parliament and in Mumbai” subsequently.

Vajpayee was the PM during Kargil war and 2001 Parliament attack. The Mumbai terror attack took place under the UPA in 2008.

Gupta also said, “Those advocating holding of talks with the separatists and Pakistan to restore peace in the Valley are either ignorant of the ground realities in the Valley and agenda of the separatists and Pakistan, or they are doing so to create a situation where they can serve their own political interests.”

The BJP leader said leaders and people supporting talks should realise that the Valley is “not the whole of Jammu and Kashmir” state but constitutes only about “20 per cent area of the present Jammu and Kashmir which is with India”. He said the people of Jammu and Ladakh regions, Kashmiri Pandits, Shia Muslims, Gujjars and Bakarwal communities as are “major stakeholders” in the state, and that they are “against elements creating turmoil in the Valley at the behest of Pakistan, (Pakistan’s) ISI and ISIS.”

These elements, Gupta said, want to convert Jammu and Kashmir into an “Islamic Fundamental State”.

He reminded leaders of the National Conference, the state’s main opposition party, that the Vajpayee government had “outrightly rejected the Autonomy Report submitted” by the then Farooq Abdullah government. “The voice of the people of the country is in favour of removal of all hurdles that keep Kashmir away from (the) national mainstream, including Article 370 of Indian Constitution,” Gupta said.

He highlighted efforts made by PM Narendra Modi in engaging with Pakistan but “Islamabad sabotaged his (Modi’s) efforts by importing terrorism in the Valley, disturbing common life of the people, and engaging in continuous firing on the borders’’.

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