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Centre may take strong stand against Hurriyat's latest proposal

The Centre is most like to take a strong stand against the proposal by the Hurriyat Conference to constitute its own election commission and hold a referendum in Jammu and Kashmir.

After a meeting of its executive committee on Monday, the Hurriyat Conference announced that it would set up its own election commission to oversee polls to determine who would represent the people of Jammu and Kashmir in the event of tripartite talks on the Kashmir issue.

The Hurriyat had announced that its three-member commission would talk to the people in the valley, in Jammu and in Ladakh to elicit a solution to the Kashmir issue.

Speaking to rediff.com, a senior member of the Union Cabinet said there was no question of the government accepting the Hurriyat proposal.

Demanding stringent action against the Hurriyat, BJP spokesman J P Mathur said that the move smacked of a conspiracy and expressed doubts that Pakistan may have been behind this latest development.

The Hurriyat's latest 'gimmick' amounts to an unofficial plebiscite, he added.

Congress spokesperson Jaipal Reddy that after the December 13 attack on Parliament the international community is unlikely to fall prey to these kinds of gimmicks.

"If the Hurriyat wants to prove its credentials, it must participate in the polls," Reddy said.

Abdul Rashid Shaheen, National Conference Rajya Sabha MP, said that the Hurriyat leadership is trying to mislead the people of the state with such gimmicks.

"If they think that they would get the backing of the international community by resorting to these kinds of measures then they are sadly mistaken. The international community acts according to its own agenda and the Centre's stand has so far not become irrelevant to the international community," he said.

"We should not react in panic and thereby give some kind of legitimacy to what the Hurriyat leaders do," he said.

"If the Hurriyat is confident that it has the backing of the majority and that it is the true representative of the people, then let it participate in the state assembly elections, which are due in September this year," he said.

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