K N Pandita

BJP has begun its Programme of hectic outreach to party workers and the public in Jammu. Earlier, Union Minister GK Reddy, the BJP Election-in-charge for UT and Nadda —then BJP President and now Union Minister — both had visited the UT together to assess the ground situation.

It is learnt that BJP leaders, including some Union ministers, are scheduled to visit all the 43 Assembly constituencies in the Jammu Division and interact with all the layers of civil society as part of the election campaign.

In the light of the Supreme Court decision, elections to the State Assembly have to be held by September 30. Ever since the verdict of the Supreme Court, the NDA Government chose to play seek and hide about announcing the final date of holding elections.

In between, many bizarre speculations were made by political pundits about whether the elections would or would not be held. This was despite assurance by the Home Minister that the government is committed to holding elections when conditions become normal.

The question of whether the conditions have become normal or not is hotly debated even today. Taking into account the recurrence of armed encounters in quick succession in recent weeks and months, the new and updated strategy of externally sponsored militancy that has taken a toll on Indian defence forces and paramilitaries, the usage of highly sophisticated weapons and communication devices of American and Chinese make, deployment of Pak forces closer to the LoC and proliferation of terrorist training camps in POJK close to the LoC, all show that not to speak of return of normalcy, militancy has spread far wider on either side of the Pir Panchal.

It is a declared objective of the insurgents working under close guidance of their Pakistani handlers that all efforts are made to disrupt the Assembly elections in the UT. Militants have changed their tactics and are intensifying clashes by using the new infiltration route of IB in the Reasi, Samba and Kathua districts.

They move undetected till building strongholds in the Doda and Reasi districts where encounters are taking place regularly and where we have suffered casualties.

The question is has the Union Government taken full note of this latest situation in the UT and made adequate preparations to counter the challenge and provide a dependable cover to the election exercise?

Have they informed the SC of the true ground situation and told it in no ambiguous words that any untoward thing happening during the election campaigns, the responsibility will be of the Supreme Court and not of the Government, which, however, will take all necessary measures to provide security?

Secondly, hindsight will reveal that the Jammu region has become an unnecessary victim of the Centre’s valley-centric policy during its second stint in office in particular. The NDA Government arranged a session in Srinagar and sold its valley development mission very eloquently to the Indian nation. Jammu region did not figure anywhere in this calculus.

What is the tally of tourists visiting the valley and tourists visiting tourist spots in Jammu? What does the Jammu tourist development dossier with the government tell us about Jammu tourism? Can it enumerate the developmental projects paralleling the valley projects during the last decade?

It is a sordid story of discrimination and abandonment. The fundamental grouse of the Jammu population is why the Jammu Division was not separated from Kashmir when the chemistry of the Reorganization of J&K State was being churned on the 5th of August 2019.

Did the BJP ever venture to assuage the hurt feelings of the Jammu region by compensating it with a mega-development; a monumental plan that would have contributed to a big change in the Jammu region’s economy, health and youth employment features?

Internal dissensions within the Jammu BJP are nothing new. It is decades-old and NDA echelons know it. What have they done to streamline the entire cadres and promote party echelons ‘outreach to them and the general public through them?

What tangible report can we have about the Government’s much-touted effort to address the basic infrastructural needs of the towns and cities? The dismal connectivity prospect of rural Jammu was recently reflected in the terrorist attack in Kathua uplands where a military vehicle was attacked and five jawans attained martyrdom.

BJP higher-ups contemplating unleashing a massive outreach to the people in all tehsils, blocks and panchayats are bound to meet stiff opposition from the infuriated public. The one question that everybody will ask will be “What has BJP done for Jammu during the last two decades when compared with their tall claims in Kashmir valley?

They will be speechless. For nearly an hour and half, the Prime Minister addressed a massive 2-lakh public gathering in Srinagar last winter. There was hardly any aspect of life in Kashmir which he did not touch upon. But for Jammu region or for the displaced Kashmiri Pandits he had not a word not a syllable.

Everybody knows that the reason why Congress and now the NDA have been pouring profusion of bounties on the Valley. The national political parties are trying to win the hearts of the people by opening the mouth of state coffers. And what is the net result?

In the context of resurgent militancy in the entire UT, the authorities both civil and military, join their voice to bring the onus to the doorsteps of “overgrown workers” whose numbers they aver runs into thousands. The truth is that it is not thousands but hundreds of thousands.

This being the reality known to the authorities also, the question is why then does the Government sink billions of rupees of Indian taxpayers in the valley and keep entire Jammu hostage to false and fake secularism? Do the BJP echelons know that intellectuals, nationalists, futurists and people with an abundance of common sense are slowly and imperceptibly vacating Jammu?

The condition of rural Jammu is simply pitiable in terms of infrastructure, power, water, medical and connectivity facilities. The flowery rhetoric that the BJP politicos are going to exude during their “outreach” Programme will have no takers. What the rural population of Jammu wants is a radical change in their lives and lifestyle. They want to exit from the medieval lifestyle and step into modern India.

Finally, our sincere exhortation to the policy planners of BJP would be to chalk out a comprehensive plan for Jammu with two main components (a) grant the fullest measure of autonomy to Jammu, and (b) a comprehensive development plan that touches on all aspects of life — a 10-year plan of 20 billion rupees to give a new shape and figure to rural as well as urban Jammu.