Mehbooba Mufti Tweets Comparing Lanka, India. BJP Reacts

Slamming former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti for her recent tweets where she warned the Indian economy of going the Sri Lankan way, the BJP on Thursday said her statement came under the purview of "treason".

"What happened in Sri Lanka should serve as a wake-up call. Since 2014, India is being whipped into a communal frenzy & imagined fears. It is treading the same path of hyper nationalism & religious majoritarianism. All at the cost of disrupting social cohesion & economic security," Ms Mufti had tweeted on Wednesday.

Taking objection to this, former Deputy Chief Minister Dr Nirmal Singh told reporters, "Mehbooba's statement smells of a big conspiracy against the country and the Bharatiya Janata Party condemns this in the strongest terms. All of this cannot be allowed. All this comes under the purview of treason."

He said the only thing common between Kashmir and the Sri Lankan episode was that some party leaders preferred "family over nation", and asked the leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the National Conference (NC) "not to test the country's patience".

Alleging that the dynastic politics in Jammu and Kashmir had "weakened India", he said, "Their blind love for their family and neglect of the ambitions and aspirations of the common man has led to a terrible mess. What hurts Mehbooba and the others after the abrogation of Article 370 is the loss of their fiefdoms and emergence of a 'naya Kashmir', where the power lies in the hands of village panchayats, and not the writs of Mehbooba and her colleagues," he said.

Mr Singh alleged that the PDP and NC leadership was troubled to see peace in Jammu and Kashmir, and were instigating the youth as elections in the union territory are likely in the near future. "There is also Pakistan's support in this," he alleged.

Further, he said Ms Mufti was trying to "ignite communal tensions" with her "hate speeches" in an attempt to regain lost political ground.

"Her agenda has failed in Kashmir, where investors are coming and tourism is growing. And now, Mehbooba is instigating the youth of Kashmir towards stone pelting and separatism," he said.

"...Is Mehbooba Mufti not misleading Kashmiris against the order of the Supreme Court? Vapi Masjid, Ayodhya, Taj Mahal are judicial issues, are they misleading the Muslim Ummah against the respected court? This is a shoddy ploy to humiliate the courts in India," he added.

Mr Singh said that Indian judicial system represented highest values imparting unbiased judgments on every crucial issue.

"It will spare nobody, be it Yasin Malik or any other involved in anti-national or anti-social activities. The people of Jammu and Kashmir will never accept their version as the youth is eyeing for development that is visible after August 5, 2019," Mr Singh added.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)