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| Modi raj and people of Jammu, Ladakh | | A saga of broken promises - I | | Early Times Report
Jammu, Nov 26: On December 1, 2013, the then Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi said at Maulana Azad Stadium in Jammu that he knew what ailed Jammu and what ailed Kashmir and held out many commitments to garner the support of the people of Jammu province for the BJP. Two of his commitments were very appealing. One was his commitment that the BJP, if voted to power at the Centre, will encourage a debate on Article 370 to know if it had harmed the people and the State or benefited both of them and that steps will be taken to abrogate this Article if it was found that it had harmed the people of the State.
Narendra Modi made this commitment as he knew that the people of Jammu province and Ladakh region, besides refugees from Pakistan, PoJK and Hindu refugees from Kashmir and Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, were opposed to Article 370.
Notwithstanding the fact that what Narendra Modi said about Article 370 was a complete U-turn, the people of Jammu province and Ladakh region went with him. The stand of the BJP on Article 370 till December 1, 2013 was that it must be abrogated, as it was communal, divisive, anti-people, anti-democratic and against the country's secular and democratic ethos and that it had held the people of Jammu & Kashmir aloof from the national mainstream and empowered Kashmiri leadership to exploit Jammu and Ladakh. In fact, Article 370 formed a very important part of its core agenda. The other two issues which formed part of its core ideology were Ram Temple and Uniform Civil Code.
The people of Jammu province and Ladakh region voted for the BJP in the last Lok Sabha elections hoping that the Modi Government will honour its commitment on Article 370. But it was not to be. The Modi Government and the BJP decided otherwise. It dropped Article 370 from its core agenda even before the people of Jammu & Kashmir went to the polls to elect new Assembly in November-December 2014 in their desperate bid to appease the protagonists of separate status in Kashmir and open their account in Kashmir Valley.
According to Prof Hari Om, former BJP ideologue and Political Advisor to Jammu & Kashmir BJP president, who was expelled from the party on November 24 on the charge of anti-party activities, "the BJP high command decided not to release the printed manifesto as it contained a reference to Article 370 based on Narendra Modi's December 1, 2013 statement on Article 370 after Hina Bhat threatened that she will pick up gun in case the BJP raked up the issue of Article 370 during the election campaign and that she had claimed that there will be no reference to Article 370 in the BJP election manifesto". Prof Hari Om was the chairman of the BJP manifesto committee and it is learnt that "it was Prof Hari Om who had also drafted the BJP election manifestos in 2002 and 2008".
The decision of the BJP high command to change its stand on Article 370 to please Kashmiri separatists didn't go well with the people of Jammu province and Ladakh. The result was that while the BJP, as expected, drew a blank in the Valley, it also suffered a massive defeat in Ladakh in the Assembly elections. It failed to win even a single seat from the trans-Himalayan region - the region which had returned to the Lok Sabha Thupstan Chhewang of BJP just six months ago. As for Jammu province, the BJP won 25 out of 37 seats.
Despite the fact that the BJP put up a grand show in Jammu province by winning 25 seats, the BJP's vote-share had fallen considerably. In the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP had got 32.5 per cent of the total votes polled in Jammu & Kashmir, but its vote-share fell by a whopping ten per cent in the Assembly elections. That its vote-share fell by ten per cent in a short span of six months was a signal for the BJP that the people were distancing themselves from the party and that they will abandon it in case it continued to behave in the manner it behaved after coming into power at the Centre in May 2014. But the BJP leadership refused to learn lessons. (To be concluded) |
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