The Trinamool Congress appeared split over the scrapping of Article 370 and the bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir after one of its MPs, Sukhendu Sekhar Ray, publicly welcomed the Centre’s decision while several party colleagues opposed it. Opposing views within the party TMC MPs including Derek O’Brien, Saugata Roy and Sudip Bandyopadhyay spoke out against the move and called for a debate on the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Bill, 2019. Ray, however, struck a very different note on Twitter, describing the decision as a correction of a long-running “Comedy ofRead More

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said on Tuesday that her party, the Trinamool Congress, would firmly oppose the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Bill, which seeks to split the state into two union territories. Banerjee’s objections Speaking to reporters at Kolkata’s Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport before leaving for Chennai, Banerjee said the Centre ought to have consulted all political parties before deciding to end the constitutional provisions that gave Jammu and Kashmir special status. She was travelling to Chennai to unveil a statue of former chief minister andRead More

Home Minister Amit Shah asserted in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday that both Aksai Chin and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) fall within Jammu and Kashmir, declaring that “we are ready to give our lives for it”. The Congress sharply criticised the Centre’s move to repeal Article 370. Shah’s statements Moving the resolution to revoke provisions of Article 370 together with the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Bill, 2019, the Home Minister said Kashmir was undoubtedly an integral part of India and that his reference to Jammu and Kashmir included both PoK andRead More

Former finance minister and Modi government critic Yashwant Sinha on Monday described the Centre’s decision to revoke Article 370 as “a pure political step”. Speaking to NDTV, he predicted that the move would help the BJP win by an even wider margin than the Congress did under Rajiv Gandhi after Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984. Sinha’s criticism Sinha, who has left the BJP, warned that the decision would further alienate the people of Jammu and Kashmir. He argued that the government’s action on Articles 370 and 35A was driven byRead More