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Created: 24 May 2020

NEW DELHI: Lashing out at the opposition political parties, Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh said here today that the opposition is raising the bogey of Jammu & Kashmir "demography" for vote bank because it is apprehensive that the new Domicile Rules Notification will not enable it to continue thriving on limited pockets of vote bank by exclusion, as they had been doing in the past.

In an interview to a private news channel on the new Domicile Law for Jammu & Kashmir, Dr Jitendra Singh said, few families had succeeded in maintaining their hegemony in Jammu & Kashmir, generation after generation, by including in the voter list only those whose vote bank they were capable of manipulating, and excluded those who they thought would not be vulnerable to their tactics, and could vote with free will. He said, this conspiracy went on to the extent that they not only deprived anybody from outside from obtaining citizenship or voter rights but also did not allow voting rights to large section of people which had settled in Jammu & Kashmir since 1947, and put up a self-righteous argument that these people were not entitled for citizenship or voting rights because they were refugees from the then West Pakistan.

In a hard-hitting rejoinder to the votaries of so-called “Demography”, Dr Jitendra Singh asked what moral authority they had to talk of demography when they had themselves committed the greatest assault on demography by remaining silent witness to the mass exodus of the entire Kashmiri Pandit community from Kashmir Valley. Ironically, he said, those who swear by composite culture of Kashmir are themselves guilty of having committed the murder of the composite culture, which was sustained only by the presence of Kashmiri Pandit community in the valley.

Dr Jitendra Singh predicted that the opposition leaders may be opposed to the new Domicile law, but their children in heart of hearts support this change and would feel blessed in the long run. History will vindicate us, he said. Referring to the various merits of the decision taken in the Union Cabinet meeting, Dr Jitendra Singh said, it was not only inhuman but also against the constitutional propriety and principle of equality that the All India Service officials who put in the prime of 30 to 35 years of their life serving the people of Jammu & Kashmir were, after superannuation, ruthlessly asked to pack up and, go and find a place to live anywhere in the country but not in Jammu & Kashmir.

Ironically, this was happening at a time when some of the States in India not only facilitated residential settlement of these officials but also provided them plots of land at discounted rates, he added. Even worse was the plight of the children who were born, brought up and did schooling in Jammu & Kashmir but were later not eligible to apply for higher education institutions, which left them nowhere to go. Describing the Union Cabinet decision and the Demographic Notification historic, Dr Jitendra Singh said, this was a miscarriage and anomaly which waited for 70 years to be corrected. May be it was God’s will that only Narendra Modi as Prime Minister should perform this act of redemption.