Indian minister alleges Pakistan working on agenda to separate J&K from India
Despite warnings from the Pakistani Foreign Office to Indian ministers to refrain from issuing “provocative statements” against Pakistan, Indian Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Sunday accused Pakistan of working on an “unfinished agenda” to separate Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) from India.
“Pakistan is working on its unfinished agenda of separating the state of Jammu and Kashmir from India. The anti-India agenda of Pakistan is to work against Indian interest and they are still working on this agenda to separate J&K from India,” said senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Jaitley.
While addressing the party’s vision seminar in Jammu, Jaitley said, “Some people are separatists, some talk of autonomy. All questions raised by local parties depend on distribution of power between the Center and state.”
However, he added that BJP wanted to bring “nationalistic” mainstream political parties in J&K.
Jaitley further said that the BJP’s political ambitions in the state were not limited to a few parliamentary seats.
“The Congress ended up with a limited agenda in J&K – to be with whatever regional party wins here. (However,) the BJP in the valley will be anti-separatists and pro-people. We are diametrically opposite to both the regional parties here,” he said.
“We will try our best to form a government here, also because for us J&K is not like any other state. This time we will prove that our ambition is not limited to three or four parliamentary seats. Kashmir is a part of BJP’s history,” said the Indian minister.
