STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee (JKPCC) Working President Raman Bhalla on Sunday accused the BJP of depriving the people of Jammu and Kashmir of the elected government for the last five years.
He said the Election Commission is under the constitutional obligation to hold assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir as the last time elections were conducted in J&K was in 2014. “Since then, no assembly polls were held here,” he said while interacting with the people at Sanjay Nagar Ward-1 during public meeting organized by Dwarka Choudhary along with other Corporators.
On the occasion, Bhalla said, “Except for the Opposition, there is nobody in Jammu and Kashmir while the government dictates the terms and doesn’t take people or political leaders on board. The government only knows how to harass people. When we tried to meet the government, it didn’t oblige. The time has come for the assembly elections in J&K and it is undemocratic to deprive the people of an elected government for a long time.” Bhalla said Congress believes in democratic values and will ensure that various pro-people initiatives are launched to benefit the weaker sections of people in our society if elected to power. He urged the people to support Congress saying, “Only this party can fight the wrong policies and politics of diversion and hate of the BJP in the whole country”.
“Democratic setup means elected representatives become MLAs and run the government because in a democracy this work can be done by elected representatives,” he added.”In India or elsewhere in the world , officers cannot run the government for more than six months,” said Bhalla.
“They never care for Jammu where from they got their votes. The people who voted them to power faced frequent power cuts, lack of drinking water supply, price rise of essential commodities, failed to deal with Pakistan on borders, due to which many soldiers got martyred in absence of strong foreign policy,” he alleged. He said that BJP has brought Jammu and Kashmir at a stage with one region is stood against other. “It was Congress Government which always kept different regions united as one unit. There was equal share in development and employment without any disparity,” he said, while praising the people friendly policy of the previous Congress Government.
Congress leader said he and his party is available for service at people 24×7.He said that Congress is only political force in the country consistently playing role of healthy opposition in the country.He said “untoward things” happened in these five years “because of which, the situation in every respect in our state became worse”. “Our fight for the rights of local people will continue. But if you are in power you negotiate from the position of strength, so winning elections will help us to strengthen our resolve to bargain for our people,” he added. Since then, no government in power ever could match the development pace and all the benefits people take out of facilities were sanctioned or executed during Congress tenure only, Bhalla added.
