Political Correspondent
JAMMU: Convinced that the BJP ministers, MLAs and MLCs would not perform in and outside the legislature and harm the interests of the party in the State unless they are given a proper training, the party High Command has deputed its National General Secretary (Organisation) Ram Lal to do the needful. Ram Lal has been on deputation from the RSS to the BJP for several years. He is known more for his organisational skills than political acumen or administrative skills. For, Ram Lal has no administrative experience whatsoever.
To impart training to the J and K BJP ministers and legislators, whose performance was “dismal” in the legislature during the budget session and who have utterly failed to connect themselves with the people, a two-day (8th May and 9th) workshop or training programme has been arranged at Katra. During the training programme, Ram Lal will train the BJP lawmakers and prepare them for propagating the party agenda and educating people about the party’s programmes while remaining in Coalition Government.
It would be a misnomer to call the present dispensation in the State a Coalition Government. It’s virtually a one-party government which is led by Patron of the PDP and Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed. The reason is that the BJP is in the government only in name, as it is the PDP which controls almost everything and the only function of the BJP is to obey all the diktats of the shrewd PDP leadership. It is the PDP which is in full command. This is the general view in the State and it appears to be a correct view.
Insiders inform that “Ram Lal will prepare the BJP ministers and legislators for preaching the party’s agenda and educating public about the party’s programmes. Which agenda and programmes they talk about? The BJP entered into an alliance with the pro-self-rule PDP only after it threw its ideology and agenda into a dustbin and endorsed the PDP’s election manifesto, also called Aspirational Agenda. It compromised its stand on Article 370, West Pakistan refugees, refugees from PoK, internally-displaced Kashmiri Pandits, anti-terror laws and such laws as the AFSPA and the PSA, delimitation, reservation in the Assembly for the refugees from PoK and the Valley, Dogra certificate, equal rights for the people of Jammu province with Kashmir, national unity and integrity, parity with the PDP in the Council of Ministers, NHPC-run power projects, AIIMS for the Valley instead of Jammu, to mention only a few, just to come into power in the State. These were some of the major issues in the name of which the BJP had sought and got votes and had captured 25 out of 37 Assembly seats, all from Jammu.
The BJP not only gave up its age-old political agenda and ideology to cultivate friendship with the PDP, but also went to the extent of endorsing the pro-Pakistan and pro-separatist “national reconciliation” formulation. It recognised Pakistan and its “assets” – Hurriyat Conference and militants – as “stakeholders” and reassured the PDP that the BJP Government at the Centre will resolve all the issues within the framework of ‘Insaniyat, Jamhooriyat and Kashmiriyat’. It didn’t ask the PDP to also include what the Dogriyat and Ladakhiyat stood for or their significance and contribution to the growth of democracy. Not only this, the BJP accepted the PDP’s suggestion that Jammu province was not a single political organic unit, but it consisted of Chenab Valley region, Pir Panjal region and Jammu region comprising Jammu, Reasi, Kathua, Udhampur and Samba Districts.
The short point is that the BJP has surrendered everything to the PDP and that the PDP’s agenda is the BJP’s agenda.
