No shift in views by BJP on article 370 : Arun Jaitley

JAMMU: Ruling out post-poll alliance with any regional party in Jammu and Kashmir, the BJP on Sunday said it has not deviated from its ideology on the issue of revocation of Article 370 from the state.

“Our views are the same which al-ways were there and you know what our views are,” Union Minister Arun Jaitley said while replying to a query about BJP not raising the issue of revocation of Article 370 in the ongo-ing Assembly elections.

On the possibility of a post-poll alli-ance to form a government in J&K, he said, “We will not join hands with any regional party to form the govern-ment. BJP is trying to form the govern-ment of its own, if someone from the nationalistic forces want to come and sit with us we will let them join.”

“We have no political relationship with these two regional parties (NC, PDP) as we have different ideologies,” the senior BJP leader said.

Talking to reporters on sidelines of a party function here, Jaitley said that issues taken up by the party during campaigns were in context of the elec-tions. “Every election has its own con-text and the issues that we have raised are in context with the Assembly elec-tions here,” he said.

Without naming Article 370, which prohibits non-state subjects from buy-ing immovable property in J&K, Jaitley said, “People are not ready to invest where they have so many com-plications and difficulties. Top univer-sities want to come in Jammu and Kashmir, but would you be able to pro-vide land for such universities?”

He said that if BJP forms the next government here it would form three regional councils so that there is equal distribution of funds and re-sources within the three regions of the state. “It would be the foremost point in our agenda if we form the government we will establish three regional councils for the equal distri-bution of resources and funds within all the three regions of the state,” Jaitley said.

The senior BJP leader said religion would not play any role while select-ing the party’s chief ministerial can-didate in the state. “Religion of the candidate is not important, his vision and his personality is,” he said.