SRI NAGAR: BJP general secretary and party’s Kashmir in-charge Ram Madhav on Thursday said Article 371 won’t be extended to Jammu and Kashmir.
He asserted that there was no connection between National Register of Citizenship (NRC) and the National Population Register (NPR).
“Article 370 won’t be extended to J&K,” Madhav said while addressing a press conference. After August 5 scrapping of Article 370, which granted special status to J&K within Indian constitution, there have been reports that Centre was considering granting Article 371-like status to the state to provide job and land security to the land-locked region.
However, Madhav, who was in the city to watch an I-league football match, said there has been no discussion in the centre on extending Article 371 to Jammu and Kashmir.
On the opposition charge that NPR and NRC were linked, Madhav said, “There was no connection between NPR and NRC. Some opposition parties and communal forces are spreading malicious lies to defame the Modi government.”
“The NPR is aimed only at collecting data of population to extend benefits of government schemes and welfare programmes to each and every person living in the country more efficiently,” he said adding, “It is just a census which happens after every 10 years. It will have residential data to know who lives where. The NPR was started by UPA in 2010. It was revised in 2015 and now we are updating it”.
He said the BJP government believes in inclusiveness and there is no question of targeting any particular community through NPR or NRC. On the release of detained political prisoners in Valley, BJP leader said, “It is an ongoing process. The politicians are currently in preventive detention. Any decision on their release will be based on the security assessment of the situation by the government,” he said.
Madhav said the restoration of the internet would depend on a security assessment.