Chandigarh: The BJP today asserted that there was no change in its plan to hoist the tricolour at Lal Chowk in Srinagar tomorrow and said it was the government's duty to maintain law and order.
"There is no change in the plan. We are proceeding ahead to unfurl the national flag at Lal Chowk tomorrow. It is for the Central and the J-K Government to see whether they want to embolden the separatists by stopping us or let the nationalism prevail," senior BJP leader and Punjab's Local Bodies Minister Manoranjan Kalia told PTI on phone.
He said that hoisting the national flag was the 'fundamental right of every citizen and nobody can stop us from exercising that right'.
"The plea of the Government that the (BJYM's) Ekta Yatra will disturb peace is unfounded. The Yatra is aimed to promote brotherhood and nationalist feeling," he said.
Kalia said that Bharatiya Janta Yuva Morcha President and Hamirpur MP Anurag Thakur will later today lead the Yatra into Jammu from the Lakhanpur border.
The authorities have sealed the border with Punjab with heavy deployment of police and paramilitary forces. Barbed wire has been put up along the Ravi bridge at Madhopur to prevent any movement of people from Punjab side into Lakhanpur.
He said despite prohibitory imposed at Lakhanpur border, the BJYM Yatra will proceed from Madhopur in Pathankot, which is located close to the Lakhanpur border.
Jammu is about 90 kms from Lakhanpur, while Lal Chowk is nearly 390 kms from there.
"Senior BJP leaders Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley and Ananth Kumar and Shanta Kumar are also camping at Pathankot. They will accompany the Yatra," Kalia said.
Swaraj, Jaitley and Ananth Kumar were yesterday stopped at Jammu airport ahead of the party's march to Srinagar to hoist the tricolour and later taken out of the state to Madhopur in Punjab by road in separate vehicles by state officials.
Meanwhile, a large number of BJP workers and leaders, including Punjab Transport Minister Mohan Lal, Amritsar Lok Sabha MP Navjot Singh Sidhu and Punjab BJP President Ashwani Sharma are camping at Madhopur.
A large number of youth BJP activists from neighbouring BJP-ruled Himachal Pradesh will also join the yatra.