Jammu, Feb 5: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Thursday stated that the Centre had “hollowed out” Article 370 but asserted that the provision remains in the Constitution and that the J&k’s relationship with India is based on it.
Speaking in the Legislative Assembly, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, as per Kashmir Convener, said the restoration of J&K’s special status was his government’s top priority, as promised to the people.
“We don’t think it is necessary to talk about 370 because you have not removed 370 from the Constitution. If you had removed it, I would have said it is necessary to include it again. But it is still there in the Constitution,” Abdullah said.
He stated that the provision had been made “hollow” and the special status had been taken away, but he emphasised that the NC is committed to regaining that status under the same constitutional framework.
“The day you remove 370 from the Constitution, the next day we will bring a resolution in the House for its restoration. But you cannot do that, because you and I both know that the relationship of J&K with this country is based on Article 370,” the Chief Minister said.
He reminded the House that a resolution was passed in its first session seeking the restoration of the special status with the constitutional guarantees provided in Article 370, which “continues to remain on the statute books.”
Chief Minister Omar also took a firm stand on press freedom, declaring that any form of intimidation against journalists “is not democracy.”
He underscored the indispensable role of a free press in a democratic framework. “I have always said that if we talk about democracy and then start bothering the press, then that is not democracy at all,” Omar Abdullah stated.
He invoked the foundational principle of the press as a key institutional pillar. “After all, if we say that the press is the fourth pillar, then keeping the fourth pillar alive is a very big responsibility of democracy,” he said.
“And I say again and again that bothering a journalist to write a legitimate story, that is not democracy,” he added.
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