look news india
Jammu and Kashmir Assembly Elections: This time the assembly election of Jammu and Kashmir is different in many ways. Ladakh is now a separate union territory, Articles 370 and 35A are now part of history and Jammu and Kashmir is no longer a full state. Not only this, another important thing is that for the first time thousands of people who were mere spectators in the Jammu and Kashmir elections will get a chance to vote. These people have been settled here for 7 decades but have not been a part of any election till now. These are the people who came and settled here from Pakistan after the partition of India in 1947.
Most of these people settled in districts like Jammu, Kathua, Rajouri of Jammu and Kashmir. These people who came in 1947 have not yet got citizenship and 5764 families had to live in camps. They could not do government, private jobs or any organized employment. They had no right to participate in elections. Therefore, they were not in a position to create any kind of pressure. With the removal of Article 370, a ray of hope emerged for these people. They got citizenship, got the right to buy land, got jobs and became a part of democracy.
Assembly elections are being held in the state for the first time after the removal of Article 370 and thousands of people from these families will vote this time. These people were called refugees from West Pakistan. The irony with this is that people who fled from Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir got citizenship because they were considered to be from the same state, but people who came from Pakistan were not able to get citizenship in Jammu and Kashmir. The reason was that Article 370 stood in the way of their rights. Now after its abolition, these people can also exercise their right to vote.
The issue of these people not getting citizenship was raised by BJP many times. Most of these people, called West Pakistan refugees, are from the Dalit community. Therefore, there was also the issue of them not getting reservation like the rest of the country. Now the way from voting to reservation has been opened for this. Till now these people used to express their pain by calling themselves slaves of a free country.
