The Indian government on Friday gave a strong reaction to the unanimous resolution of the Gilgit-Baltistan Assembly, which demanded provincial status from Pakistan. The government again reiterated that this area was, is and will always be a part of India. During a press conference in Delhi, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said that ‘We have always said that the entire union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh are an integral part of India. He was, is and will always be an integral part of India.
Randhir Jaiswal reiterated Delhi’s old stand on Jammu and Kashmir and said that India has repeatedly opposed any attempt by Pakistan to change the status of areas under its control and said that such unilateral steps have no legal validity.
Actually, this development has come to light when Pakistan is considering declaring Gilgit-Baltistan as its fifth province. The assembly of this region has unanimously passed a resolution demanding constitutional recognition. The resolution demands the federal government to amend the Constitution of Pakistan, give full provincial status to Gilgit-Baltistan and ensure representation of the region in the National Assembly and Senate.
Total 4 provinces in Pakistan
This resolution also states that the residents of Gilgit-Baltistan should get the same constitutional, political and democratic rights as the citizens of the four provinces of Pakistan. Currently there are four provinces in Pakistan, Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The idea was sent to the Parliament of Pakistan
This step has been taken a few weeks after the elections for the Gilgit-Baltistan Assembly held on June 7, in which there were allegations of electoral irregularities. Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) emerged as the largest party and later formed a coalition government with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N). Then immediately after assuming power, the coalition government put forward this proposal and sent it to the Parliament of Pakistan for consideration.
However, this proposal is not new. Earlier in August 2019, when India removed Articles 370 and 35A and reorganized the state of Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan had also presented a similar plan, but the then government of Imran Khan did not take any further steps on it.
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