| Not a word for Jammu, Ladakh | | Rajnath's visit | |
Early Times Report
JAMMU, Aug 26: People of Jammu and Ladakh are angry. They are feeling upset, badly let down and humiliated. Many are bemoaning their decision to vote for the BJP in the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. "Had we were given even a small hint that the BJP after getting massive mandate in the 2014 elections would treat us so shabbily and barter their interests to appease Kashmiri people, we would have rejected the BJP," said Rahul Sharma, a Jammu University student.
"It is disgusting that Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh visited Srinagar twice during the past 45 days, but didn't find one moment for the people of Jammu and Ladakh, the real victims," said another University student, Sham Sharma, adding that "everyone in our house voted for the BJP hoping that the BJP would fight for the honour, dignity and self-respect of the people of Jammu province and fight for their cause in and outside the assembly and Lok Sabha, but the BJP turned out to be more anti-Jammu and more pro-Kashmir".
Pinto Namgyal, another student, said: "We the people of Ladakh region are completely disappointed over the raw deal and step motherly treatment. We had hoped that Ladakh and Jammu province would be treated equally with Kashmir at all levels and people of the neglected regions would get their due share, but the BJP has betrayed them and their cause to remain on the right side of Kashmir". He added that "we are afraid that the BJP could overturn the Indian Constitution to further please the Kashmiri separatists and Jihadis". "We are feeling totally disgusted," he said.
This was the general view of those whose reactions this correspondent invited to the second visit of Rajnath Singh to Kashmir. Junior and senior lawyers, members of the business community, women activists and other civil society members all spoke in one voice against the BJP and the Rajnath's second visit. There was hardly anyone who spoke good for the BJP.
The reasons for their anger appear quite genuine. For, Rajnath Singh not even once spoke a word for the suffering people of Jammu and Ladakh. He only talked of Kashmir, Kashmiri youth, Insaniyat-Jamhooriyat-Kashmiriyat, pellet guns, pain of and deaths in Kashmir, all-party delegation, dialogue with anyone in Kashmir, Kashmir and India's fate is inter-linked and so on but nothing about Jammu and Ladakh and the issues confronting them. Indeed, the people of Jammu and Ladakh had hoped that Rajnath Singh would not only visit Kashmir but also Jammu and Ladakh to listen to the people of these three regions and give inputs to the Prime Minister accordingly. That he visited only Kashmir and ignored Jammu and Ladakh for the second time in 45 days only further angered those who didn't BJP a part of the state but a party of Kashmir. The BJP has to take cognizance of the people's mood in Jammu and Ladakh failing which it would become a story of the past in both these regions, which have already turned hostile towards it. |
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