BJP backs students' stir in Jammu over National Law University, Kashmiri leaders fume

JAMMU: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders in J&K on Sunday joined students of Jammu University who are protesting for the establishment of a National Law University (NLU) in the Jammu region. The party told students the BJP had not remained silent on the issue and described fight for the NLU for Jammu as a collective struggle.

The BJP leaders said that the party would raise the matter in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly and press the government to accept the demand. The 27-day long Assembly session is starting from today. The BJP leaders said the issue had been discussed earlier on Sunday at a meeting of the party’s legislative group and had also been taken up at the national level in New Delhi.

Senior BJP leader and Leader of the Opposition in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly, Sunil Sharma, along with party legislators Divyani Rana, R.S. Pathania and Shagun Parihar, visited the university campus, where students were chanting slogans demanding an NLU for Jammu.

Sharma and the legislators sat with the protesters and said he respected sentiments of the students. He described the demand as a wider regional issue rather than one limited to law students. “This struggle is not just about law students. It concerns every individual of the Jammu region,” he told the students.

He said the party would intensify its agitation if the government failed to respond positively. “If the law allows the establishment of more than one National Law University, and the funding is coming from the Government of India, then there should be no obstacle,” he said.

With similar demands for a National Law University also coming from the Chenab Valley and Pir Panjal regions of Jammu, Sharma said the NLU could be established in any of Jammu’s ten districts. “I don’t think the government should have any problem with that,” he said, accusing chief minister Omar Abdullah of turning the issue into a regional dispute.

Sharma said last year the chief minister announced that the NLU would be set up in Budgam district when there was bye-elections in Budgam and he was fearing that his party candidate would not win the polls.

Earlier, Omar rejected the demand to set up a NLU in Jammu instead of Kashmir. He argued that there were no protests from Kashmir when Jammu was allotted both an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and an Indian Institute of Management (IIM).

The chief minister said that when the Central University issue arose during his earlier tenure when he was CM in erstwhile J&K state, he had urged the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to establish two universities, one in Jammu and one in Kashmir. He insisted that the current controversy over the NLU was politically motivated.

In Kashmir, Peoples Conference chairman Sajad Lone has stated that the chief minister should honor his electoral commitment of establishing a NLU in Budgam, while simultaneously questioning what he termed Jammu's "obsessive" opposition to developmental initiatives in Kashmir. Lone has stated that the NLU promise was made by the CM during the Budgam Assembly bye-elections. "The sanctity of the institution of CM demands that he lives up to his promise and set up the NLU in Budgam," he said referring to the proposed university's location in Budgam.

The dispute has meanwhile deepened regional fault lines. Peoples Conference president and Handwara MLA Sajad Lone sharply criticised Jammu-based groups opposing the NLU in Kashmir, saying the issue had gone beyond development. “Maybe the time has come for an amicable divorce. Jammu has become the proverbial stick to beat Kashmiris with,” Lone said.

The demand of establishing the NLU in Jammu instead of Kashmir has gained traction after the National Medical Commission in early January 2026 withdrew the letter of permission to the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Institute of Medical Excellence (SMVDIME). The SMVDIME decision came after protests by the BJP and Hindu groups over the institute’s first batch of admissions, in which 42 of the 50 selected students were from the Kashmir Valley and belonged to the Muslim community.

Protesters argued that an institution funded by the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board should admit only students who have faith in Mata Vaishno Devi. While the National Medical Commission stated that the SMVDIME lacked faculty and other facilities, the chief minister had stated the SMVDIME was closed on religious grounds.