BJP leader Kavinder Gupta posts, then deletes, tweet about Jammu and Kashmir’s ‘Identity’

The comments come as the Supreme Court is hearing petitions challenging the changes made to Article 370 by the Centre since 2019.

Jammu and Kashmir had its separate identity even when India was an undivided “subcontinent”, former J&K deputy chief minister Kavinder Gupta said Sunday, in what is being seen as criticism by a BJP leader of the party-led Centre’s 2019 move to revoke the erstwhile state’s special status.

In a tweet on the origin of the J&K Bank, which he later deleted, a line Gupta posted in Urdu read: “Tum jab bar-e-sageer thay, hum tab bhi Jammu wa Kashmir the (When you were a subcontinent, even at that time we were Jammu and Kashmir).” It was tagged with a photograph of a J&K Bank cheque book dated 1947, with the bank’s office address mentioned as “Muzaffarabad (Kashmir)”, which now falls in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

The photograph has been circulating on social media for the past few days.

“The J&K Bank was founded in October 1938 under letters of patent issued by the then Maharaja of Jammu & Kashmir, Maharaja Hari Singh,” the tweet further read. “The bank commenced banking business on July 4, 1939 and was considered the first of its nature and composition as a state-owned bank in the country.”

The comments come as the Supreme Court is hearing petitions challenging the changes made to Article 370 by the Centre since 2019. The Centre has defended the changes and said they were made while following “due process”.

Despite repeated calls, Gupta and other leaders of the BJP’s J&K unit could not be reached for comment.

Gupta, who has his roots in the RSS, which he joined at a young age of 13, was part of the PDP-BJP coalition government formed after the 2014 Assembly elections in J&K. He was first elected Speaker of the Legislative Assembly and was later sworn in as Deputy Chief Minister. Source