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| Challenges before new BJP State president | | Learning Lessons From Past Mistakes | | Neha
JAMMU, Dec 22: The Jammu and Kashmir unit of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today elected new president for a term of three years in the presence of Central BJP leaders, called Prabharis and Seh-Parbharis. The party's "unanimous" choice was the two-time MLA from Nagrota Assembly constituency Jugal Kishore Sharma, though there were other contenders from the top party position as well. A day before, the tenure of outgoing party president Shamsher Singh Manhas was commended by senior party leaders like Ashok Khajuria, Nirmal Singh and Ashok Koul. They termed his tenure as an eventful one saying under the leadership of the outgoing party president the BJP reached new heights. It was only natural.
It was expected that none of those who spoke yesterday would regret what happened to the party during his tenure and it actually happened. It is hardly necessary to reflect on what led to the decline of the party during the past three years. For, everyone knows that even the Kashmir-based PDP succeeded in relegating the BJP to the third position during the just-held Legislative Council elections, that the party legislators indulged in cross-voting on an unprecedented scale not once but twice, that the party high command expelled seven out of 11 MLAs from the party on the ground that they voted for the pro-autonomy NC and Congress candidates in the 2011 Legislative Council elections, and that it utterly failed to play the role of an effective and responsible opposition. Suffice to say that even the hardcore supporters of the BJP had come to believe that the party had lost its moorings, sheen and appeal and that it was "five/six senior leaders, including a couple of MLAs, who reduced the party to a meaningless sham for the sake of personal profit". The belief may appear far-fetched, but it was their belief.
Besides, there were others who had virtually written off the party, saying it had "no role to play in the State, as its leadership had abandoned the ideology the party was known for". They even held the view that the "top-ranking BJP leaders and the party legislators consistently flirted with the NC and the Congress big-wings, thus rendering the party ineffective and unreal for all practical purposes and demoralizing the committed party workers". So much so, its own well-wishers had on occasions dismissed the BJP as "no more than an extension of the NC".
These were some of the views of the general public and its own well-wishers and supporters. The task of the newly-elected party president appears very difficult considering the challenges confronting the party. He has not only to start from a scratch, but also to prove his leadership qualities needed to end factionalism within the party and galvanize public opinion in favour of the party. Besides, he has to identify him with the people of Jammu province - the party's core constituency - provide a credible alternative to other political players active in this region, come out with an attractive pro-Jammu political agenda and prepare the party cadres for a full-scale campaign against those demanding autonomy and self-rule. Not only this, he and the team he will select in the next few days in consultation with the party high command have to remain on their toes meeting people and trying their best to redress their grievances. But more than that, he and other office-bearers will have to discard the politics of reaction and set an agenda that forces others to react. In other words, he and his team have to learn from the past mistakes and move forward with a single-minded devotion. The BJP, which won thrice consecutively from the Udhampur-Doda-Kathua Lok Sabha constituency and twice in a row from the Poonch-Jammu-Rajouri Lok Sabha constituency and led in more than 30 out of 37 Assembly segments, can restore the ground it lost over the period by committing acts omission and commission, as also by compromising its ideology as well as stand on Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan. |
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