Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Nitin Gadkari on Saturday defended his party?s plans on hoisting the tricolor in violence-hit Kashmir and said the ?yatra? would not create any security problem.
The party has planned to hoist the national flag at Lal Chowk on Jan 26, which has evoked lot of tension in the Kashmir Valley. The J&K government was not willing to allow the rally in the state as a precautionary measure.
Gadkari, who is on a goodwill visit to China, justified the BJP Yuva Morcha Kashmir Yatra to hoist national flag in Srinagar and appealed to the Congress party as well as the National Conference to join his party and make it an all party event.
He said the BJP Muslim workers in Jammu & Kashmir were supporting the Yatra because ?we don?t find anything wrong in hoisting national flag in our own country.?
?I don?t think the Yatra will create any security problem. It is the responsibility of the state government to maintain law and order because; it is the democratic right of every Indian citizen to feel free to hoist the national flag anywhere in the country,? said Gadkari.
On Wednesday, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah called on Union Home Minister P Chidambaram and apprised the latest law and order situation arising out of proposed Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha’s (BJYM) “Ekta March” in the state on the Republic Day.
Meanwhile, the BJP’s youth workers are on their way from West Bengal to Jammu and Kashmir. They plan to end their march at Lal Chowk, where, in 1948, Jawaharlal Nehru promised Kashmir a plebiscite. The BJP is determined to hoist the tricolor at Lal Chowk here to prove Kashmir is an integral part of India.
The BJP yatris plan to enter the state on Jan 25 from the border town of Lakhanpur in Jammu. They will then head towards Srinagar.
But the government is determined not to allow the BJP march to get in the state.