news details |
|
|
| BJP to corner Congress in Assembly over Omar's remarks on accession | | Stormy session in offing | | Rustam
JAMMU, Sept 30: A week-long session of the Jammu & Kashmir Legislature is commencing today in the state's summer capital, Srinagar. If what the J&K BJP president said the other day about one Congress minister from Jammu, who contradicted Omar Abdullah's controversial statement on the state's accession to India on October 26, 1947 and asserted that the state is an integral part of the country, then it can be said that the assembly is likely to witness a fierce debate on the issue of great national import.
There are potent reasons to believe that the assembly session would be quite story with the BJP likely to accuse the Congress of indulging in double-speak and asking it to withdraw its support to the Omar Abdullah-led controversial government and the Kashmiri law-makers belonging to the Non-NC and non-Congress outfits and even those belonging to the ruling NC demanding a probe into what former Army chief said about the Kashmiri politicians a week ago. There are also reasons to believe that the NC MLAs in particular would target Agriculture Minister Ghulam Hassan Mir, who allegedly received is 1.19 crore from the Army to help it stabilize the situation in Kashmir. The NC leadership is anti-Mir and it wants to oust him from the Council of Ministers but has not been able to do so because Mir is their in the ministry out of the Congress quota. It is obvious that the Congress would side with Mir.
In other words, the BJP would target both the NC and the Congress over the issue of the state's accession, the NC would pounce upon Mir, who had only recently lambasted Sheikh Abdullah and accused the NC leadership of taking recourse to politics of blackmail, the parties like the PDP and CPI-M would tear into the NC and the Congress would take on the BJP and defend the Agriculture Minister, who has already offered himself for a time bound inquiry into the allegations leveled against him by the vested interests.
It needs to be noted that the BJP has made up its mind to corner the Congress over its unambiguous stand on the accession issue and expose its double-speak. Only on Sunday, the J&K BJP president Jugal Kishore Sharma made the party's stand on the issue clear and asked the Congress to explain its stand on Omar Abdullah's statement on accession/merger of the state. "If the Congress does not endorse the views of Omar Abdullah it should immediately withdraw its support to the government and bring no-confidence motion against erring Chief Minister in the Legislative Assembly session beginning September 30 at Srinagar," he on Sunday said, adding that the Congress was a party to each and every action and decision of the state government. "We had condemned the Omar Abdullah's statement in 2010 also. But in this election year, his March 25 statement and the statement that he made during his interaction with the European Union delegation in Srinagar have given us the much-needed ammunition to target and expose the Congress, as it is part of the coalition government with the National Conference," another senior BJP leader said while reacting to the statement made by one Congress minister from Jammu.
It is also important to note that the BJP considers the Congress its main political rival in Jammu province and Leh district and since the general elections are to be held in the next few months, the BJP would surely rake up issues that touch the heart of the nationalist people of the state. It is the Congress that has been at the receiving end with even Union Health Minister and former JKPCC chief acknowledging that the Congress is in a difficult situation. Both the Congress and the BJP were almost evenly balanced in 2008, when elections to the assembly were held. The Congress had won 13 seats and the BJP 11. The BJP would surely make use of all the weaknesses and failures of the Congress and do all that it could to improve its poll prospects. Its advantage is that the Congress has leaders like Rahul Gandhi, who, like Omar Abdullah, has failed to click despite the party's and government's full backing. The BJP, on the other hand, is fortunate in having Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as its Prime Ministerial candidate, who has already started campaign in right earnest and addressed massive rallies in the states like MP, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Delhi and Rajasthan.
In any case, it would be interesting to watch the proceeding of the Jammu & Kashmir Legislature all the more because both the NC and the Congress are standing on a weak wicket, as their government has utterly failed to deliver on any front. Indeed, it is advantage PDP in Kashmir and BJP and even JKNPP in Jammu province. The Congress can retrieve some ground provided it is willing to take head on the Chief Minister, who has been airing anti-India views and pursuing anti-Jammu and anti-Ladakh policies for almost five years now. Since the Congress is unlikely to act against Omar Abdullah, its political fate in the state hangs in a balance. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
