Mehbooba Mufti speaking to NDTV's Sonia Singh at the HT Leadership Summit in New Delhi.
"As far as article 370 is concerned, there's no fiddling with it," Peoples Democratic Party President Mehbooba Mufti said on Saturday. The Constitutional provision, that grants special status to the state of Jammu and Kashmir, "only strengthens the bond with India," she said.
The feeling that "Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India has to go beyond the ownership of land," she said, speaking to NDTV's Sonia Singh at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit in New Delhi. India needs to invest in Kashmir's peace, she said.
"If Kashmiris chose to be a part of democratic and secular India (in 1947), we need to be given something in return...We need to be treated special," Ms Mufti, whose party runs the coalition government in the state with the BJP, said. "If you give someone something, to snatch it away slowly is stealing. Article 370 only strengthens the bond with India," she said.
The BJP has stood for abrogation of the Article. It stated that position in its manifesto for the 2009 Lok Sabha elections but by the next general election, last year, had revised it to a more nuanced approach. "The BJP reiterates its stand on the Constitution provision and will discuss this with all stakeholders and remains committed to the abrogation of this article," its manifesto for the 2014 general election said. The party's manifesto in the state elections in Jammu and Kashmir later that year had skipped mention of Article 370.
On Pakistan, Ms Mufti said there is no alternative to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's approach of reaching out to Pakistan, adding that she expected PM Modi to follow a similar approach. "That is why Ms Sushma Swaraj is going to Pakistan," she said.
Ms Mufti said chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed wanted to take what begun in the Vajpayee era to a logical conclusion.
"Whatever my father had started during Vajpayee's time and then it was taken forward by Dr Manmohan Singh...everything was put on the backburner," she said. Asked if thought PM Modi would follow Mr Vajpayee's approach, she said: "He's coming around.
Speaking out strongly against ISIS, the lawmaker from Anantnag said, "ISIS are totally against the very basis of Islam. They are destroying everything that Islam holds dear. Kashmir people will never follow them."
"Kashmir is looked at from the security prism. Everything becomes a security issue, we need a more humane approach," she said.