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| Congress losing space because of its association with NC | | Anti-Congress Wave | |
STARK REALITY
RUSTAM
JAMMU, Oct 23: People of Jammu Pradesh, barring a few exceptions, are not happy with the Congress party. They have come to believe that it is the Congress which has complicated things in the state by extending unflinching and unqualified support to the National Conference (NC) and that whatever the NC leadership in and out of the government has been doing since January 2005 to widen the gulf between the state and New Delhi it has been doing it with the full backing of the Congress party. There is a view that the Congress will pay a very heavy price in the next elections, as the people of this Pradesh by and large consider the association of the Congress with the NC against the paramount national interests as well as against the vast nationalist constituency in the state.
The fact is that a very strong anti-Congress wave is sweeping the state, especially its two regions -- Jammu and Ladakh – which house half of the state’s population. In Kashmir, the Congress decimated itself in February 1975, when it brought down its own government and handed over the state power to Sheikh Abdullah whose anti-India credentials were too well-known and who was known for his bias against Jammu and Ladakh. People of Jammu Pradesh are chaffing and seething with anger because they feel that the Congress has given unbridled freedom to the NC, which, taking full advantage of the opportunity, has unleashed a relentless campaign against things Indian, including the Army and the Indian Constitution. They do make a valid point.
Take, for example, what NC additional general secretary and Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s uncle Mustafa Kamaal has been saying for quite sometime now while addressing rallies at different places in the state. He has been comparing India with the theocratic and dictatorial Pakistan and demanding for the state political and constitutional status it enjoyed between October 1947 and August 1953. "It was the NC which prevented Pakistan from annexing State’s territory in 1947 and now it has taken up cudgels with New Delhi for restoration of Greater Autonomy as enshrined in the constitutional application order of 1950, Delhi Agreement of 1952 and the Article 370 of Indian Constitution", he has been saying. He is leaving none in any doubt that the NC stands for pre-1953 status (read semi-independence or a step short of complete independence) and restoration of the offices like Sadar-e-Riyasat and Wazir-e-Azam. In other words, he is making it loud and clear that the NC considers India an alien country; that it doesn’t want to have any kind of truck with New Delhi; that it wants to reestablish in the state an oligarchy; and that it wants to force down the throats of Jammu and Ladakh its poisonous ideology.
What Kamaal has been saying is what the nationalist constituency in the state opposes tooth and nail. Nay, it hates and abhors the pernicious ideology of the NC. The local Congress leadership, not even the one which hails from Jammu and Ladakh, has utterly failed to take note of what the people of these two distinct historical regions think about the NC and what this Kashmir-based party stands for. It is this indifference of the Congress party that is working against it. If one goes by the prevailing mood in Jammu, then it can be said that the Congress will suffer a humiliating defeat both in Jammu and Ladakh in the next elections, as and when held. |
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