People, Parties Should Have Been Consulted Before Abrogation of Article 370, Says Siddaramaiah

Bengaluru: Former Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Wednesday said the people of Jammu and Kashmir as well as all other political parties should have been taken into confidence before abrogating the provisions of Article 370, that gave special status to the state.

Siddaramaiah, who is on a tour of flood hit regions of north Karnataka, especially Belagavi and Bagalkot, tweeted: "The Central government neither convened an all-party meeting nor spoke to the people of the state before theabrogation of the provisions of Article 370."

The senior Congress leader felt the government should have spoken to the all concerned before abolishing the provisions in the Constitution as per the then prevailing political situation. He said that the government "shouldnot have thought of deriving political mileage out of it".

"Who will address issues like unemployment,poverty, illiteracy and hunger if politics is playedaround emotional issues? The government's job is not to gainsympathy, seek publicity and mislead people on emotional matters.

The tragedy, however, is that the Union government is doing nothing other than this," Siddaramaiah said. The Union government had on August 5 abrogated the provisions of Article 370 giving special status to Jammu and Kashmir.

The Congress leader also slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for not visiting flood affected areas of Karnataka. "The Prime Minister, who frequently visits foreign countries, has no time to tour flood affected areas".

Going abroad cannot be avoided, but shouldn't one take note of thesufferings of the people of the country?" Siddaramaiah tweeted. He flayed Modi for "focusing only on those areas where he got maximum publicity". Since he would not get due publicity, he did not travel to the flood affected areas, Siddaramaiah claimed.

The heavy rains which hit parts of Karnataka in the first fortnight of August, wrecked havoc with almost all the rivers in spate. As many as 82 people lost their lives in flood and rain related incidents. About five lakh people were displaced.

According to the state government, 103 taluks of 22 districts were affected. The flood damaged 7.5 lakh hectaresof land and 75,317 houses.