Onlykashmir.in News Desk
Jammu and Kashmir Waqf Board Chairperson Dr Darakhshan Andrabi on Thursday dismissed the National Conference’s planned Jantar Mantar protest as a distraction, asserting that the restoration of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir would not be achieved through political demonstrations in New Delhi.
Speaking to reporters at Makhama in Magam, central Kashmir’s Budgam district, Andrabi alleged that the ruling National Conference was staging the New Delhi protest to shift public attention away from what she described as its governance failures. “Statehood will not return through a protest at Jantar Mantar,” she said, framing the party’s planned demonstration as more symbolic than substantive.
The Waqf Board chairperson said the National Conference had failed to deliver on the promises it made to voters and was now resorting to street-level mobilisation to mask those shortcomings. “The National Conference is staging this protest to divert the attention of the people from its failures,” she alleged, adding that genuine progress on statehood would come through engagement with the Union Government rather than public agitation.
Andrabi pointed to repeated assurances from the highest levels of the Union Government on the statehood question, citing public commitments made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah. “The Prime Minister and the Home Minister have already stated and assured that statehood will be restored. It will return, but not because of a protest at Jantar Mantar,” she said, suggesting that patience and institutional channels would ultimately deliver results.
Her remarks come as the National Conference prepares to hold its New Delhi demonstration seeking the restoration of full statehood for Jammu and Kashmir, a demand that has found broad resonance across the political spectrum in the region even as parties differ sharply on strategy. The protest has already drawn mixed reactions from various political formations in the Union Territory, some backing the show of public pressure and others, like Andrabi, questioning its utility.
The exchange underscores the deepening political debate over the pace and mechanism of statehood restoration, an issue that continues to dominate discourse in Jammu and Kashmir nearly six years after the region’s special status was revoked.
