Nationalist Congress Party activists protest against Prashant Bhushan

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) today held a demonstration and burnt effigy of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Prashant Bhushan for his remarks on referendum in Kashmir.

Over 150 activists of the Jammu and Kashmir unit of Nationalist Youth Congress (NYC), the youth wing of NCP, today held a protest in front of the Press Club here. The activists shouted anti-AAP and Bhushan slogans and burnt an effigy of the leader.

Bhushan had recently said a referendum should be carried out in Kashmir to decide on deployment of the army to deal with security threats in the Valley. However, AAP had distanced itself from his views.

The deployment of Army in the Kashmir Valley is a matter of internal security there is no question of having a referendum on it, president of the J&K unit of NYC Gourav Kapoor, who led the protest, said. "So-called leaders like Prashant Bhushan whose political life is so short can't understand internal and external ramifications of Jammu and Kashmir state which is surrounded by foreign powers like Pakistan and China," he said.

It is upto the nation to decide where to deploy Army and where not, Kapoor added. "It is not the first time, but two to three times before also Bhushan gave such anti-India statements on Jammu & Kashmir, which is totally not acceptable, especially by people of the Jammu region," he said.

The protesters demanded that Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal apologise to the nation for this "anti-India" remarks by his party leader on Jammu and Kashmir.