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On August 22, six regional and national parties unanimously resolved to fight for the restoration of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir as it existed before August 5, 2019, saying the measures taken by the Center were spitefully short-sighted and grossly unconstitutional.
More About Gupkar Pact
- The parties reiterated that they are bound, wholly, by the contents of the Gupkar Declaration, a resolution issued after an all-party meeting on August 4, 2019 at the Gupkar residence of NC president Farooq Abdullah.
- The resolution was announced at the end of the meet on August 4, 2019, a day before the Centre announced its decision of revocation of J-K’s special status and split it into two union territories
- The parties unanimously resolved that they would be united in their resolve to protect and defend the identity, autonomy and special status of Jammu and Kashmir against all attacks and onslaughts.
- “That modification, abrogation of Articles 35A and 370, unconstitutional delimitation or trifurcation of the state would be an aggression against the people of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh,” the Gupkar Declaration read that day.
- The parties have also claimed that the signatories to the Gupkar Declaration have barely managed to establish a basic level of communication with each other in the face of a series of prohibitive and punitive curbs imposed by the government, aimed at impeding all social and political interactions.
- The signatories of the joint statement include NC president Farooq Abdullah, incarcerated PDP president Mehbooba Mufti, Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee president G A Mir, CPI(M) leader M Y Tarigami, Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Conference chairman Sajad Gani Lone and Jammu and Kashmir Awami National Conference senior vice-president Muzaffar Shah.
- The parties also exhorted the leadership of the subcontinent to take due notice of the ever increasing skirmishes at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and Line of Control (LoC) resulting in casualties on both sides and unabated violent incidents in J-K and work for enduring peace in the region.
- This is only for the second time such a political development is taking place. The first time being in 1955 when Plebiscite Front was founded, immediately after the first Constitutional Order 1954 was promulgated. The Front which called for a UN supervised plebiscite, finally signed the Indira Abdullah-Accord in 1975.
