The BJP on Monday said the UPA Government had failed to counter the separatist propaganda on the “conspiracy to change the Valley’s demography” and making it a “victim of an economic blockade”. “We kept saying this is a myth. The Union Government did nothing to clear the myth,” said party general secretary Arun Jaitley, in charge of elections in J&K, at a function on Monday.

Tracing the problem in the state to the “Nehruvian vision”, the BJP leader said: “A political audit of the last 60 years would prove that the assumption that a separate status for Jammu and Kashmir would lead to its full integration with the Indian Union has been belied.”

Referring to the separatist movement in the Valley, he said: “Those who are arguing ‘if Kashmir wants to go, let it go’ should remember that the age of redrawing political boundaries is over; the politics of appeasement is a thing of the past now. The second stage of this process is to be soft on terror.”

The BJP leader also accused the Government of playing politics over the Amarnath issue. “There are two high court judgements on the issue. But the Government does not follow them fearing an adverse reaction in the Valley,” he added.