The All India Institute of Medical Sciences for Jammu and Kashmir it appears is likely to polarise the State. Adding to the confusion is the ambiguity of the policy which both the region feel stand deceived. If Jammu feels it has been deceived by the PDP by taking the institute to Valley, however the Agenda for Alliance, signed for government formation by PDP and BJP, says the institute came to the Valley. No institute of such magnitude is allotted on regional basis but on State basis. This has been the irritant which the politicians tried to encash by raising the emotions of the people in Jammu and the strike which followed for a fortnight. If it was Dr Jitendra Singh, MoS in the PMO and BJP MP from Udhampur, who delivered a speech thanking Finance Minister for announcing AIIMS for Jammu, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed after being sworn in as Chief Minister took the shelter under Agenda for Alliance, which said that Valley would get AIIMS and IIT and IIM for Jammu. Opposition Congress and National Conference too joined the controversy bandwagon at that time by promising which was not there. The polarisation was visible at that time and only regional leaders were there to keep the issue going, whereas Kashmir-based opposition parties kept a little far away so as not to harm their political future by aligning with a cause which will have no significance at home. Throughout this period, the partner in governance BJP stuck to the stand by saying that Atal Behari Vajpayee government had given an AIIMS to Jammu in 2003, and then Health Minister Sushma Swaraj had laid its foundation stone, but successive Congress Governments at the Centre and the State had converted it into a Super-Specialty Hospital. The agitation headed by AIIMS Coordination Committee, which was an amalgam of over 70 organisations, too saw two complete Bandhs against shifting of AIIMS to Valley in last August. It appears that the BJP leaders have taken the people of Jammu for granted and have totally forgotten their election manifesto. For it the Common Minimum Programme looks purely to grab power and it appears the discriminatory issues of Jammu and welfare of its people have been totally lost sight of.
