Early times Report
JAMMU, Apr 5: During the regime of late Mufti Sayeed, the BJP Cabinet Ministers from Jammu held the portfolios of Power Development, Public Health Engineering and Irrigation, Health and Medical Education, Industry and Commerce, Transport, Forest and Social Welfare. The rest were with the PDP and some of them included Home, Finance, Planning, Revenue, Tourism, Education and so on.
The complaint of the people of Jammu region then was that the BJP surrendered almost everything to Kashmir and that it was Kashmir which got all the vital departments as well as maximum representation in the State Cabinet. They were expecting that they will get equal share in the governance of the State under the new PDP-BJP dispensation that came into being on Monday after almost three months of confusion, uncertainty and war of words between the PDP and the BJP leaders over the would-be-political status of Jammu province vis-a-vis Kashmir Valley in the State's polity. But all of their hopes got dashed to the ground. This is not an overstatement; it's a statement of fact and is very easily verifiable.
The BJP not only could obtained only six berths for itself and for the neglected Jammu province in the all powerful Cabinet, which takes policy decisions, but it also meekly surrendered to Kashmir even Social Welfare Department, the only important department the BJP and the people of Jammu province had during the regime of Mufti Sayeed.
Kashmir once again established its superiority over Jammu province and also left none in any doubt that whatever be the Jammu's mandate, Jammu will have to be subservient to Kashmir. Remember, out of 17 berths in the State Cabinet, 10 have gone to Kashmir province. It means it would be Kashmir whose writ will run like in the past and the people of Jammu have to look towards Kashmir even for crumbs. Indeed, the BJP has again cheated the people of Jammu region. How unfortunate are the people of Jammu province? |
