JAMMU: Senior PDP leader and Public Works Minister Altaf Bukhari is partly correct and party wrong in saying, “Ours is a new government and we may be little inexperienced. So there may be some aberration, but we do not want to do anything which is against the law”. He was playing victim while rolling back the decision with regard to issuance of Permanent Resident Certificates in schools. The procedure was adopted by the BJP with one of its ministers issuing PRCs in Kishtwar. This raised eyebrows in Kashmir and hence the decision. Inexperienced BJP could not whisper, least to speak a word in defiance.
To the extent of BJP ministers being inexperienced, Bukhari is absolutely right but he is surely wrong in bracketing his own party in this category. The PDP ministers are smart and shrewd enough to handle the affairs of the State as per their whims and wishes. BJP ‘lads’, on the contrary, are willing cushions to serve as per convenience of the senior coalition partners.
The PDP was not inexperienced while ensuring release of Masarat Alam and allowing the anti-national rally on 16th April to provide much needed oxygen to secessionists’ cause and sending a signal to BJP led NDA in Delhi where they stood on Kashmir turf. Masarat is potential successor to Syed Ali Geelani and therefore his re-arrest is only to give him a required build-up to fit in the shoes of hardcore secessionist. BJP is inexperienced because it could not get its most vociferous demand of arresting Asiya Andrabi on seditious charges.
Senior coalition partner preempted the ‘misadventure’ of some BJP ministers on the use of State Flag alongside Tricolor on their vehicles and issued a notification. This was withdrawn next day with the Deputy Chief Minister crying hoarse on conspiracy against the Coalition Government and promising action against the bureaucrat responsible for the ‘sabotage’. Mufti Sayed responded by a cool grin and the Deputy Chief Minister was made to eat up his own words. Nothing of the sort happened and no officer got punished. This is yet another example of inexperienced part of the Coalition Government.
The establishment of All India Institute of Medical Sciences at Jammu (as revealed by the Minister of State in PMO) was surreptitiously modified and diverted to Kashmir with BJP showing ‘high degree of political inexperience’ by yelling ‘nobody can snatch it from Kashmir’ instead of assuring that the Temple City too will get a similar facility on the analogy of Central University. The hammer is in the hands of National Conference, Congress and Panthers with BJP playing as villain.
BJP ministers cheered up over the assurance of ‘blueprint for promoting tourism in Jammu’ but practically highways were opened up for Kashmir, by exhorting Bollywood to ‘return home or Ghar Vapsi’, corporate to hold conferences in Gulmarg, elite couples to host high profile weddings in Hari Niwas, Srinagar and nature lovers to come on package tours to the Valley. Inexperienced BJP is still looking towards ‘blueprint.’
The BJP’s theme dream of Kashmiri Pandits return to the Valley is dying its own death with all-including PDP-vowing not to allow ghettos (in the words of Omar Abdullah) or Israel type hutments (as pronounced by the Chief Minister) in Kashmir. Now the so-called hardcore Sangh Parivar is looking for exit point to remain in the government in Kashmir.
The aPDP is carrying on with its mission of AFSPA free Kashmir and the ‘inexperienced BJP’ publicly disowns its fundamentals to stay in power. BJP stalwarts are made to read Anantnag as Islamabad and the hardcore Jana-Sanghis feel obliged to justify the distortion in names religiously.
Therefore, roll-back on the issue of PRC should not surprise to those who know little bit of Kashmir politics. The decision has been prompted by the perception, though wrong, that Sanghis may go ahead with issuing State subject certificates to non-state subjects. “We have checked those certificates which were issued at a function and found that they had been issued by the respective Tehsildars and Deputy Commissioners. Yes, they were distributed by someone, but there is no controversy,” Altaf Bukhari said without spelling out why the new procedure was scrapped if there were no controversies or illegalities involved. Ironically, he refers Minister of State for Revenue Sunil Sharma as ‘someone’ who had distributed PRCs to school children at Khattan and Bhatta villages of Palmer area in Kishtwar District. Poor, inexperienced but ‘shame-proof’ BJP lads!