JAMMU: The PDP-BJP Coalition Government has failed to address political and developmental aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir, former Minister and senior Congress leader Raman Bhalla said on Tuesday.
“Tall, stentorian promises of ‘Ache Din’ have amounted to ‘Ache Din’ for a chosen few in terms of their personal welfare while common people have been left to fend for themselves by a brazenly insensitive and callous dispensation,” Bhalla said while addressing a Congress workers meetings at Upper Gadigarh, Channi Rama, Bathindi and Jalalabad, here on Tuesday.
He said lack of direction and political will have compounded the perception of political uncertainty in the State whereas the government should have tried to provide a hope of inclusive development, reconciliation and peace.
Terming PDP and BJP as two sides of the same coin, the former Minister said that his apprehensions about their “clandestine understanding” were proven right when they formed the Coalition Government after “enacting an elaborate drama about their alleged south pole versus north pole ideological divergence” during the Assembly elections.
He wondered how BJP impetuously joined hands with PDP notwithstanding the fact Prime Minister Narendra Modi had vowed to “free” Jammu and Kashmir from the rule of both National Conference and PDP.
He said regional polarisation and efforts to divide the people on the basis of their religions could have short-term political advantages but Jammu and Kashmir will always stick to its legacy of inclusiveness, secularism and tolerance. He said that those giving sermons on secularism should learn its basics from the glorious, selfless history of Congress. The former minister said that development has been pushed to back burner while public grievances were mounting unheard with each passing day. He said both PDP and BJP played regional and emotional cards to hoodwink the people for winning elections and later betrayed them for the sake of power.