STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: Describing the All Party meeting convened by the Prime Minister as mere window dressing, Harsh Dev Singh, Chairman JKNPP and former Minister, questioned the neglect of recognised political parties of the State while holding the said meet.
Talking to reporters, Harsh expressed dismay that while the political parties having their base confined to south, east and west had been called for the said meeting, the regional political Parties of the J and K State were ignored.
He said that the participants in the meeting included representatives of several political parties which neither had any existence in J and K not had their leadership ever bothered to visit the trouble torn state to take stock of the current turmoil. He regretted that while the non state participants and half baked experts of other States dominated the proceedings, the local leadership of the state and its regional parties having firsthand knowledge of the ground situation were ignored and kept out of the said meeting for political reasons.
He said that non invitation to the state level opposition parties of J and K had defeated the very purpose of the meeting and rendered the whole exercise meaningless.
Flaying in particular the non-representation of Jammu region in the said meeting, Harsh said that aspirations of the people of the said region comprising ten districts were totally ignored with not a single Jammu related issue having been projected in the said meeting. He said that Jammu region had not only been bearing the brunt of frequent Pak mis-adventures on the borders resulting in large scale loss of life and property but huge infiltrations from IB and LoC had largely threatened peace in the region.
He said that Pak sponsored militancy had spread its tentacles to various districts of Jammu region and subversive elements aided and abetted from across the borders were out to disturb our pluralistic ethos and the age old culture of communal harmony. He further pointed out that Jammu had suffered immensely economically as well as in view of business losses worth hundreds of crores sustained by traders besides loss in tourism and employment sectors.
Harsh said that though the party did not oppose the invitation to DMK, Trinamool Congress, Janta Dal, AIDMK, SP, NCP, CPI and others but non-involvement of regional political parties and non representation to Jammu region was objectionable. He said that the Prime Minister ought to have interacted with the regional leadership, taken feed-back from these local parties and taken them into confidence for the purpose of retrieving the situation and restoring normalcy in the State. He flayed in particular the told neglect of Jammu region and its leadership in all such meetings besides in other central initiatives on J and K which he said had created lot of resentment amongst the people.
Regarding the deliberations in the said All Part meeting Singh said that it failed to offer anything new to the State. The meeting has merely offered old wine in new bottle to the people of the State, he added.
