BJP’s Ekta Yatra in Kashmir

DHARAMSALA: BJP has decided to go ahead with its ‘Ekta Yatra’ in Kashmir and the plan to hoist Indian national flag at Lal Chowk in Srinagar on Republic Day.

On Thursday The Jammu and Kashmir government announced that it would not allow the BJP’s Ekta Yatra programme. The 6000-km Ekta Yatra (National Integration rally) is being led by BJP’s youth wing “Bhajumyo” national president and Lok Sabha MP Anurag Thakur.

Reacting to the J&K government’s decision, Thakur said, “I have the constitutional right to unfurl the national flag in any part of my county.” He added that the BJP was going ahead with its plans.

On Saturday afternoon after it started from Kolkata (West Bengal) on January 12.The political rally would be entering Una, Himachal Pradesh The BJP rally travelled through Jharkhand, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana and would culminate on January 26 with the unfurling of the national flag at Lal Chowk in Srinagar. About 15000 BJP workers from Himachal Pradesh are participating in this rally.

Anurag Thakur told TOI that the Yatra began from Kolkata – the birth place of Jana Singh’s founder Shyama Prasad Mukherjee who died in Jammu & Kashmir during 1953 agitation. He said the Yatra had received tremendous support and helped create awareness about Artice 370. The Article 370 gives special status to Jammu and Kashmir in the union of India. The BJP believes that the resolution to Kashmir conflict lies in revocation of J&K’s special status and its complete integration with India.

Thakur said, “It has lost the teeth and seems to have no vision and far-sightedness to resolve the vexed Kashmir problem. Rather than resolving the Kashmir problem, it is bowing to the diktats of the separatists.”

He also said, “The separatists’ elements come to New Delhi and make anti-India statements but the centre government seems to be helpless in taking any action against them.”