JAMMU: Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti reiterated that she would hold the tricolour and the flag of the erstwhile state of J&K together as a separate flag and constitution for J&K were ensured by the Constitution of India.
She said as a J&K assembly member she had reaffirmed her faith in the J&K constitution and the sovereignty and integrity of India and that both were inseparable.
“Both of these are interlinked… I am talking of the flag which didn’t come from the sky or China. Our constitution gave us that flag but they (BJP) snatched our constitution and flag from us… I will uphold both these flags together,” said People’s Democratic Party chief Mufti, who was CM in the erstwhile PDP-BJP government and was released last month after 14 months of detention.
Mufti’s assertion on the flag and constitution of erstwhile state of J&K comes a few days after the lieutenant governor of J&K, Manoj Sinha, said in an interview to ET that the people who at some point have taken oath in the name of the constitution, must remember its “maryada” (dignity).
“These men going around in half-pants will lecture us about nationalism. We in Kashmir upheld the tricolour in the worst of times. Our thousands of men were martyred in Kashmir for the same,” Mufti said, hitting out at the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh without naming it. “Those moving around in half-pants and where their leader sits do not hoist the tricolour at their headquarters and they lecture us on the national flag.”
Mufti, who is also vice president of the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration – a grouping of Kashmir’s parties formed to fight for restoration of Article 370 and statehood – was on her first tour to Jammu after her release from detention.
She referred to the commitment of her late father, Mufti Muhammad Sayeed, who was associated with the Congress till he formed his own party in 1999, to the tricolour and the constitution. “My father upheld the tricolour in Kashmir, when he faced social boycott and we were termed gutter insects of a filthy drain,” said Mufti.
The PDP leader said that as an MLA in J&K assembly she had affirmed her faith in the constitution of J&K and vowed to uphold the integrity and sovereignty of India.
