Taking Article 370 case to Supreme Court was a blunder: Altaf Bukhari

Srinagar Jan 03: Apni Party President Altaf Bukhari has criticised the local political parties for what he said making a blunder by taking Article 370 abrogation case to the Supreme Court, as the issue "was political and should have been resolved politically."

“The decision was unfortunate and against the expectations of people of Jammu & Kashmir. We believe Supreme Court is a temple of justice, so we have to go with the decision it pronounced. We have to accept it,” he told news agency KNS.

“We willingly or unwillingly made a huge blunder to take Article 370 to the Supreme Court and helped those who were chasing it to scrap. If we had political roadmap on it, we would have done better but we lacked on this front and so lost the case.”

Bukhari, who was a finance minister in the PDP-BJP coalition government, said the regional political parties have “befooled us enough” on Article 370. “They were playing political cards and making people realize they will give their blood and sweat in its protection. Why didn’t they make it permanent in last seventy-years?” he asked.

“Many governments come and go and many politicians as well, but Article 370 remained unresolved (temporary) till its last breath. Why these politicians didn’t ensure it during 1987 accord? Why it was not done in 2014 when they form coalition with BJP, who was against this provision since its beginning. Why they left it unattended in these times? If National Conference (NC) is responsible for weakening Article 370, similarly Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is equally responsible for their wrongdoings it committed with the special status in their times. They all played emotional politics on it and made people fool enough,” he said.

Bukhari said that the people of J&K should extend their support to his party in the elections so that “we will bring back snatched rights”.

“Local political parties did enough blackmail of our people in past seventy-years and didn’t ensure a single right for them. Although there is a provision that after fifteen-years any outsider can get domicile of J&K for land and jobs, but I assure you once we come to power, we will stretch this time period from 15 to 30 years,” he said.