Jammu, July 27: After a protest at New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar, the Jammu and Kashmir Congress has demanded a three-day special session of the J&K Legislative Assembly to deliberate on the restoration of statehood and formulate a unified political strategy to pressurize the central government.
J&K Congress president Tariq Hamid Karra stressed the urgency of addressing this critical issue in the Assembly and called for the session to be dedicated solely to it.
Karra emphasized that over the past six months, Congress has been consistently mobilizing public support for this cause. He said the Congress high command has fully endorsed the demand for statehood restoration and is committed to carrying the movement forward.
He dismissed speculation that Congress had hijacked the National Conference’s (NC) agenda on statehood, clarifying that their protest campaign, including the “Delhi Chalo” call to gherao Parliament, was a natural extension of months of groundwork and public mobilization.
Karra also criticized the National Conference, a coalition partner in the J&K government, for failing to involve allies in decision-making processes.
He pointed out that in the nine months since Omar Abdullah’s government took office, no genuine effort had been made to form a Coordination Committee or draft a Common Minimum Programme (CMP) for the coalition. He said statehood is a shared objective across all coalition partners, and ego or hesitation must not obstruct united action.
Taking a veiled dig at the NC’s reluctance to take to the streets, Karra said that while NC enjoys power, it should not shy away from participating in public demonstrations. He added that Congress, despite being part of the coalition, has stayed engaged with the people, highlighting the urgency of statehood restoration through peaceful agitation.
Reflecting on the success of the protest in Delhi, Karra said the campaign had national resonance. Senior Congress leaders participated in the demonstration on the instructions of Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge, drawing widespread media and public attention to the BJP-led Centre’s failure to act on its commitment to restore statehood to Jammu and Kashmir.
Karra concluded by thanking party leaders and grassroots workers for their enthusiastic participation in what he called the first phase of the struggle. He assured that the movement would intensify and that the next course of action would be announced soon in consultation with senior Congress leadership.