Kongu Nadu, North Bengal: Is the threat of bifurcation a go-to weapon for the BJP?
After downgrading Jammu and Kashmir, the party seems happy to dangle this threat over its political opponents in the states.
6 hours ago
Prime Minister Narendra Modi during an aerial survey of cyclone-hit areas in Gujarat on Wednesday, May 19.
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Narendra Modi/Twitter
When the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government decided in 2019 unilaterally to bifurcate Jammu and Kashmir and downgrade it from a state into a Union territory, many argued that it was likely to be a one-off action. No other Indian state had such a complex constitutional arrangement as Jammu and Kashmir, coupled with a hold on India’s political imagination. That’s why, it was argued, this move could not be seen a tactic that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would seek to use elsewhere.