Srinagar: The BJP will not be allowed to hoist the national flag at Lal Chowk in Srinagar on Republic Day. Sources say Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has decided to stop BJP's Ekta Yatra, flagged off earlier this month by party chief Nitin Gadkari, and it may not be allowed to enter the state.
Omar had earlier asked BJP not to "precipitate" the situation in the Valley by going ahead with its yatra to hoist the tri-colour at Lal Chowk. On Wednesday, the Chief Minister met Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Home Minister P Chidambaram to apprise them of the situation in the state and discussed how to deal with any situation arising out of the BJP programme.
''In the national interest, they should not do anything that could precipitate trouble and once again reignite the sort of problems that we with great difficulty dealt with in the summer of last year,'' Omar Abdullah had said.
Disregarding Omar's appeal, the BJP has vowed to go ahead with its yatra with senior BJP leader LK Advani insisting that hoisting the flag is not provocative. "If they want to go and hoist the national flag at Lal Chowk then they are not challenging anyone. They must go and hoist it," he said.
The yatra is made up of largely youth workers of the BJP and is headed from West Bengal to Srinagar. It has now reached Delhi.
With Akali-BJP government in Punjab, the party expects a smooth passage till the J&K border.
The BJP's route has also led to separatists warning that they will hold their own march on January 26 to Lal Chowk.
It's that sort of tension that the government is desperate to avoid.
Lal Chowk is where Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru promised Kashmir a plebiscite in 1948 - a speech that forms the basis of separatist discourse. The BJP says by bringing the flag here, it wants to drive home the point that Kashmir is an integral part of India.
However, some sections within the BJP are wondering whethe! r it wil l be sensible to go ahead with the yatra because any subsequent violence in the Valley would be blamed on them.
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Omar had earlier asked BJP not to "precipitate" the situation in the Valley by going ahead with its yatra to hoist the tri-colour at Lal Chowk. On Wednesday, the Chief Minister met Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Home Minister P Chidambaram to apprise them of the situation in the state and discussed how to deal with any situation arising out of the BJP programme.
''In the national interest, they should not do anything that could precipitate trouble and once again reignite the sort of problems that we with great difficulty dealt with in the summer of last year,'' Omar Abdullah had said.
Disregarding Omar's appeal, the BJP has vowed to go ahead with its yatra with senior BJP leader LK Advani insisting that hoisting the flag is not provocative. "If they want to go and hoist the national flag at Lal Chowk then they are not challenging anyone. They must go and hoist it," he said.
The yatra is made up of largely youth workers of the BJP and is headed from West Bengal to Srinagar. It has now reached Delhi.
With Akali-BJP government in Punjab, the party expects a smooth passage till the J&K border.
The BJP's route has also led to separatists warning that they will hold their own march on January 26 to Lal Chowk.
It's that sort of tension that the government is desperate to avoid.
Lal Chowk is where Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru promised Kashmir a plebiscite in 1948 - a speech that forms the basis of separatist discourse. The BJP says by bringing the flag here, it wants to drive home the point that Kashmir is an integral part of India.
However, some sections within the BJP are wondering whethe! r it wil l be sensible to go ahead with the yatra because any subsequent violence in the Valley would be blamed on them.
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