JAMMU: BJP president, Ravinder Raina has endorsed the Government decision to grant domicile to J&K women married outside J&K.
Addressing a press conference along with former Dy. Chief Minister, Kavinder Gupta, general secretary and former Minister, Sunil Sharma, BJP Headquarter, incharge and former Minister, Priya Sethi and spokesperson R.S. Pathania at party headquarter here, he fully endorsed the passage of J&K (Adaptation of State Laws) Second Order 2020 which seeks to grant domicile status to husbands of J&K women married outside. Terming it a historical step, Ravinder Raina said that National Conference (NC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP and Congress had been selling dreams of all sorts to people of J&K since the past so many decades.
It was ironical to see that secessionist leaders who had married to women from outside the country including Pakistan had ensured State Subject rights / status for them. But daughters of J&K who were marrying people within India but outside J&K were losing all the rights in J&K, he added. Raina said an alarm bell to the effect was sounded by full bench of J&K High Court while delivering the final judgment in Dr. Sushila Sawhney Vs State of J&K in the year 2002. High Court had held the law as gender discriminatory. But the anti-women Bill was pushed through the J&K Assembly with 2/3rd majority where Congress, NC, PDP were on same page. Nonetheless, with the enactment of J&K Reorganization Act the idea of ‘Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat’ has come in to play. And all such anti-women, anti-youth, anti-people laws / arrangement have been put beneath the carpet. He said although as per the existing arrangements some categories of people have been seeking domicile status subject to fulfillment of certain conditions.
In the same vein another progressive law has come to play. The families of women marrying outside have been made eligible for domicile status. This marks another milestone post 5th of Aug. 2019 in J&K history. And the people of J&K, especially women, are upbeat and in high spirits, he added.
Raina expressed his sincerest compliments to the Central Government led by Prime Minister, Narendra Modi as well the UT dispensation led by LG Manoj Sinha for this historic step.
