It is clear that statehood will not be restored to J&K anytime soon. The local unit of BJP has taken credit for it, because it deemed that the return of this status to National Conference government would encourage secessionist and separatist forces. It had a severe objection to the wording of the resolution that read: “In addition to the  Resolutions passed by this House on 26th June  2000 and 6th November 2024, this House calls upon the Government of India for the immediate and urgent restoration of full statehood to Jammu and Kashmir and resolves that this Resolution be forwarded to Government of India.”

At the moment it is in a self-congratulatory mode  because it got the rejection for the Resolution written much before the discussion started on it in the Assembly. There is absolutely no harm in celebrating the success, but the party also needs to understand that  it could have done all that what it did in the House, it could have done in far better manner in tune with the democratic spirit and the  task it was handed over seven years ago.Following the abrogation of Article 370 and the accompanying decisions taken by the Government of India on August 5, 2019, Union Home Minister Amit Shah handed a critical mandate to the BJP leadership in Jammu and Kashmir: go door-to-door and explain how transformative these moves would be for the people of the two newly created Union Territories. One territory held the hope of promised statehood, while the other—Ladakh—finally achieved the distinct status its majority Buddhist population had coveted for decades.

Ladakh received what it wanted, and J&K was promised its statehood back at an “appropriate time.” On........

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