Parliament to take final call on J&K statehood, says Ram Madhav as Omar Abdullah set to lead first post-Article 370 govt

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Ram Madhav has said that Parliament will take a final call on the timing and structure of granting statehood to Jammu and Kashmir.

The Union government right from the Prime Minister and home minister downward, has repeatedly said that statehood will be granted at an appropriate time. Madhav, who was the BJP incharge of Jammu and Kashmir in the recently-concluded assembly elections told HT in an interview.

"But Parliament will be the right forum to decide on that. Parliament will take a final call on the timing and its structure," he said.

Madhav statement comes as National Conference-Congress alliance gets ready to form the government in Jammu and Kashmir under with Omar Abdullah as chief minister. Omar has said in interviews and interactions after October 8 results that restoring statehood would be the new government's priority.

Priority Statehood

“Our immediate priority is to work with the government in Delhi to get statehood back for Jammu and Kashmir. Now in that respect, I believe that the Prime Minister is an hounarable man. He has promised people of Jammu and Kashmir that statehood will be restored…,”Omar told NDTV in an interview.

The NC-Congress alliance won the Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections by winning 49 seats in the 90-member house in the results declared on Tuesday. While the NC bagged 42 seats, the Congress won six seats. One seat was bagged by CPI-M. The BJP won 29 seats, up from 25 it had won in 2014 assembly polls.

“J&K is not like any other state, we have covered a lot of ground in terms of containing terrorism, separatism, stone pelting and hartals in the past five years, post the abrogation of Article 370. Those benefits that we secured should not be frittered away. The government will take a decision in consultation with other parties at an appropriate time...,” Madhav told HT.

In 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi government at the Centre abrogated Article 370, that have special status to Jammu and Kashmir in August 2019. The government also downgraded the erstwhile state into two Union Territories – Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh.