Congress MP Bhubaneswar Kalita resigns from Rajya Sabha

Congress MP Bhubaneswar Kalita from Assam. Pic/ Official twitter account of Kalita

New Delhi: In the wake of scrapping Article 370 of the constitution, which grants special status to Jammu and Kashmir, Congress MP from Assam, Bhubaneswar Kalita on Monday resigned from the membership of the Rajya Sabha.

The Congress leader took to Twitter to confirm his resignation from the membership of the Rajya Sabha.

"Yes, I have resigned from the Rajya Sabha today and the resignation has been accepted," Kalita told ANI here.

On being asked the reasons behind his resignation, Kalita said, "I will not analyse the reasons now, maybe tomorrow or day after, I will explain them to you."

Kalita, a Rajya Sabha member from Assam, had only a few months left in his tenure. His term as MP ends on April 9, 2020.

While some opposition parties opposed the scrapping of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir. They even termed the government's decision of bifurcation into two union territories as a "black spot". Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad on Monday slammed the government of removing the identity of the state. He said that the state's head, considered as India's crown, has been "chopped off" and its identity removed.

Opposing the move, Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad said: "In my political life, I had never even imagined that the state which is India's crown, one day that head will be chopped off".

"You have made light of the state of J & K," he said, charging it was a 'matter of shame' that the Centre had reduced the state to a non-entity with Lt Governor's rule.

"The way an atom bomb explodes, such an explosion took place in the House today when the Home Minister arrived," Azad
said in the Upper House. Will you (Govt) break and ruin the old India to create a New India, he asked.

As reported by the PTI, Azad said the government should not play with India's history, unity and culture to get votes.

"Today they are removing Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir, abolishing Article 35A, doing delimitation by breaking the state without its will...", Azad said.

Azad also said that the people in the state of Jammu and Kashmir stood by the country's security forces and did not choose Pakistan despite it having the same religion. Instead, they accepted the secularism of India.

"Today, you have again laid the foundation to disintegrate. Integration does not take place through legislation, its happens through the heart", Azad said.

He dared the Government to bring a Bill to convert Gujarat into a Union Territory, saying it should not take things lightly, and accused the Centre of muzzling the state's history while being "drunk" with power.

With inputs from ANI, PTI

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