Political Correspondent
JAMMU: BJP State General Secretary (Organisation) Ashok Koul, whose writ runs in the party as the State BJP president, according to insiders, “is good for nothing”, on Friday asserted at Anantnag (Kashmir) that the charge that PDP has “sidelined” the BJP is not well-founded. He said the PDP and the BJP are “equal partners” and the coalition is working well, as there is perfect understanding between the partners.
Earlier, BJP National General Secretary Ram Madhav, the chief architect of the Common Minimum Programme (CMP), had also made almost an identical statement while addressing the BJP Executive Committee members in Jammu last month. He had asserted that the age-old discrimination with Jammu had ended and Jammu for the first time got important portfolios. He had advised the local leadership to handle the allotted departments well and deliver.
It appears the BJP is indulging in exercises of self-deception to hide the truth. The fact of the matter is that the people of Jammu province under the present dispensation have been reduced to a nullity for all practical purposes. They have little or no say in the government. This is the general view in Jammu. This is not only the view of the general population in this province but also of many BJP MLAs.
It is pertinent to mention here that a number BJP MLAs are unhappy with those who are running the party’s show in Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir. They in private say the days are not far when we will come out openly and expose those who formulated the Agenda of Alliance, which is not only against the
people of Jammu and Ladakh but also against the entire country as it has given “sweeping and overriding powers” to the BJP’s coalition partner in the State, who stands for self-rule, demilitarisation, dual currency and general amnesty. The party high command is pursuing a “dangerous line” in Jammu and Kashmir, they say on condition of anonymity, adding that “anger” is brewing among the party workers with each passing moment as the high command and Ram Madhav and Avinash Rai Khanna (Prabhari) are not listening to them. “They are not reasonable. They have no patience to listen. They have a coterie which is taking all the good and bad decisions,” they also say.
These lawmakers do not share the view of Madhav that “Jammu has for the first time got its due share in the government, that Jammu has got important portfolios and that there is the need to work hard to achieve results”. They counter this view and make their point by saying that it is Kashmir which has got 12 berths in the 19-member Cabinet and captured such important portfolios as Finance, Home, Planning, General Administration Department, Development, Revenue, Education, Tourism, Employment, Agriculture, Sericulture, Rural Development, Law and Parliamentary Affairs and so on and Jammu got only forest, PHE and Irrigation, Health, Power Development, Housing and Urban Development and Transport. The Forest, PHE and irrigation, health and medical education, power development, housing and urban development and transport portfolios “cannot meet the needs” of the people Jammu region, as they do not have any political power and all these departments are in an extremely bad shape, they say. “Our ministers will become very unpopular sooner than later as they would not be able to get the funds these departments need,” they say to make their point. There is logic in what they say.
They also disagree with Madhav who had said that the Agenda of Alliance contains everything the refugees from West Pakistan and PoJK had demanded. “There is absolutely nothing in the Agenda of Alliance for the refugees. It doesn’t talk about citizenship rights. It also doesn’t talk about adequate compensation to the PoJK refugees,” they say, adding that “the BJP has been treating these refugees like the NC and Congress treated them during the past 67 years”. “There is no difference between the approach of the BJP, the NC, the Congress and other Kashmir centric parties towards these hapless refugees,” they emphasise, and take the party high command and Ram Madhav and Khanna to task for perpetrating a great injustice on Jammu. They refer to the decision that the proposed AIIMS-like institute will be established in Kashmir. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had on 28th February announced in the Lok Sabha that Jammu will get AIIMS and Kashmir IIT and IIM and MoS in the PMO Jitendra Singh had congratulated Jaitley in the Lok Sabha itself for the announcement.
The critics of Ram Madhav and ilk within the party also do not buy the argument that the BJP’s participation in the State Government will end discrimination with Jammu region. Addressing the party leaders at Katra, Madhav had, according to insiders, said that “during opposition, the BJP had highlighted the discrimination being meted out to Jammu and now when the party is part of government it will end that discrimination with the region and it will also give equal treatment to Kashmir and Ladakh regions”. On the contrary, the critics within the party say that the BJP has surrendered all the interests of Jammu and Ladakh as well as the country to Kashmir for reasons best known to him and the party high command which doesn’t want the local leadership to open its mouth. “We have been gagged. We are not allowed to question the high command, which is behaving in a dictatorial manner and making the party weak and unpopular day by day by pursing pro-Kashmir policies. Something serious is cooking up at 11 Ashoka Road as far as the political future of Jammu and Kashmir is concerned,” they say, adding that “in the process, the RSS has also been losing its credibility”.
They also make a very interesting comment and their comment is: “PM Modi started the Congress-free India movement some 20 months ago. If he continues to behave in the manner he has been behaving since October 2014, India would become BJP-free in 2019”. One may or may not endorse this comment, but it cannot be denied that the BJP has been losing its sheen and appeal across the country, including Jammu and Kashmir, at an alarming speed.
