 Early Times Report
Jammu, Sept 27: After the Leader of the Opposition (LoP) Sunil Sharma’s meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Delhi on Saturday, the BJP is likely to strongly oppose the statehood resolution of the National Conference in the Legislative Assembly.
Highly placed sources said that LoP Sunil Sharma has briefed the Union Home Minister about the game plan of the ruling National Conference to mention the greater autonomy resolution of 2000 in the statehood resolution.
As reported earlier, resolution moved by Chief Minister Omar Abdullah for the restoration of statehood has turned into a full-blown political brawl on the floor of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly on Saturday.
What began as a demand for statehood quickly spiralled into something far bigger: a live demonstration of how the ruling National Conference (NC) and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) intend to position themselves as the fight over Jammu and Kashmir’s constitutional future heats up.
The trigger was a single reference — the resolution’s invocation of the Assembly’s 2000 autonomy resolution. That was enough to send BJP legislators charging into the Well, shouting that the government was attempting to smuggle a “settled” issue back onto the table. NC and Congress members hit back LoP Sunil Sharma has briefed the Union Home Minister about the game plan of the ruling National Conference to mention the greater autonomy resolution of 2000 in the statehood resolution.
The text of the resolution itself read plainly enough: a call to the Government of India for the “immediate and urgent restoration of full statehood to Jammu and Kashmir.” But it was the accompanying reference to autonomy that transformed a straightforward ask into a full-scale political confrontation.
The BJP’s response was swift and coordinated. Leader of Opposition Sunil Sharma met with Union Home Minister Amit Shah almost as soon as the resolution hit the floor — a meeting whose timing left little doubt about where the party’s real decision-making was happening. Sharma emerged with the BJP’s position sharpened: statehood could be discussed, but autonomy and Article 370 were off the table entirely. He branded the resolution “controversial” and demanded to know why the autonomy resolution had been dragged into it at all.
The battle lines were drawn in a single sentence: for the BJP, statehood must stand entirely apart from any talk of constitutional rollback; for the NC, autonomy is a foundational political commitment it will not quietly shelve. | 