STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: Cautioning the people of Jammu Pradesh not to get swayed away by the statehood bogie raked up by the MLA Udhampur for his own vested interests, Balwant Singh Mankotia, State President JKNPP made a fervent appeal to the people to support and strengthen Panthers Party as it was the lone voice of Jammu Pradesh which had been fighting for the cause of Dogras right from the streets to the Supreme Court.
Talking to reporters here on Sunday, Mankotia, while reacting strongly over the U-turn taken by Pawan Gupta over Statehood issue, disclosed that the obnoxious move contemplated by the MLA Udhampur was aimed to blackmail BJP to pave way for his return into the party fold.
He said that the workers of the MLA had been making propaganda that they would persistently exert political pressure on the Saffron Party to allow his return by all means.
Mankotia divulged that MLA Udhampur after his exit from the ministerial berth was feeling exasperated and galled who had been mulling the tactics for his return in the BJP by raking up the Statehood issue in parallel to the surrendered ideology of the Saffron brigade.
Mankotia further revealed that MLA Udhampur never uttered a single word demanding Statehood to Jammu region during his election campaigns besides ministerial stint. He said that Pawan Gupta’s father also remained MLA from the same constituency toeing the party line of the BJP for several years but he had never invoked the issue of Statehood during his tenure.
Mankotia wondered that what had provoked Gupta to rake up the issue all of a sudden from the blue and maintained that he could smell an obnoxious stratagem of MLA Udhampur to woo the electorate of Jammu in the name of statehood just to black mail the BJP leadership to bend on his dictates.
Hailing the initiative taken by “Jammu for India” by the Ex BJP leader in the interest of Jammu region, Mankotia also cautioned the intellectuals of the forum to desist from taking MLA Udhampur on board who was only bothered about meeting his political interests. He said that inclusion of Pawan Gupta in the forum would only tarnish the image of the forum and prove detrimental to the cause projected in the interest of the people.
Others who accompanied Mankotia included Advocate Vilakshan Singh, Gagan Pratap, Neeraj Gupta, Balbir Singh and Purshottam Parihar.
