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| Congress' last-ditch effort to woo Jammu voters | | Regional councils | | Rustam
JAMMU, Dec 16: The Congress, which had won 13 seats from Jammu province in 2008, is doing all that it could to repeat its 2008 performance in this part of the state. It is trying to convince the people of Jammu that a vote for the Congress would be a vote for their empowerment and for the establishment of an empowered regional council. It is not only Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha and in-charge of Congress election campaign in the state Ghulam Nabi Azad who is urging the Jammu electorate to vote for the Congress for their own empowerment, but the JKPCC president Saif-ud-Din Soz and AICC president Sonia Gandhi are also holding out similar commitments.
On December 10, Sonia Gandhi, for example, held out a commitment that the Congress, if voted to power, will establish regional councils for Jammu province and Kashmir. She made this commitment while addressing an unimpressive election rally in Jammu. Earlier, Leader of Opposition and in-charge of election campaign in Jammu & Kashmir Ghulam Nabi Azad had also held out a similar commitment and Saif-ud-Din Soz had declared that Sham Lal Sharma would be given a crucial role in case the Congress was voted to power.
These are the last ditch efforts of the Congress party to woo the Jammu electorate, which will elect 20 members in Jammu province to the Jammu & Kashmir Assembly on December 20. Will the people of Jammu province trust the Congress leadership? It is a difficult question to be answered. The reasons are obvious. It is the Congress that had brazenly let down the people of Jammu province and Ladakh, which together return to the Assembly 41 members. The Congress in the past made a number of solemn commitments with the people of Jammu and Ladakh that it, if voted to power, will end discrimination with them and hand down a regime that would treat them and the people of Kashmir equally at all levels and in all spheres, but utterly failed to fulfill any of the commitments. On the eve of 2002 Assembly elections, the Congress, which shared power with the PDP between 2002 and 2008, had held out many promises, but threw its manifesto into the dustbin after coming to power. Some of the broken promises included (1) establishment of regional development boards for Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh to remove regional imbalances; (2) extension of full powers to the Autonomous Hill Development Council, Leh, that was "deprived of its legitimate powers" by the NC Government; (3) establishment of airport at Kargil to connect it with Jammu, Srinagar and Delhi; (4) extension of ST status to the Pahari-speaking people; (5) consideration of the "long standing demands" of all the ST communities; (6) proportional representation to Scheduled castes in the ministry and in the Legislative Council; (7) establishment of a "clean, transparent and responsive administration at all levels; (8); appointment of experts to look into the causes responsible for the creation of inter-regional tensions and suggest corrective measures; (9) empowerment of Backward Classes, Scheduled Tribes, Scheduled Castes and people living below poverty line; (10) implementation of 73rd amendment of the Indian Constitution to empower the elected panchayats; and (11) constitution of a Minority Commission to look after the minority communities. The Common Minimum Programme (CMP), which was made public by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Delhi on October 27, 2002 during the press conference, made several commitments. These, inter-alia, included (1) adequate financial assistance for the relief and rehabilitation of the migrants from various disturbed areas of Jammu and Ladakh as well; (2) construction of permanent shelters in all the vulnerable areas close to the Line of Control to prevent loss of life and allotment of alternative land to such families in safe zones; (3) compensation to those people from border areas of J&K who suffered losses of crop and cattle due to security operations near the LoC and international border; (4) grant of full powers to the Autonomous Hill Council for Leh; (5) constitution of a Delimitation Commission to redraw the Assembly constituencies to meet the demands of the people; (6) employment and welfare of youth; and (7) appointment of a Minority Commission. The Congress did nothing whatever to honour any of these solemn commitments. It left the people, especially those from Jammu and Ladakh and minority communities high and dry. Instead, the Congress pursued policies which further alienated the people. In 2008 as well, the Congress held out several commitments on the eve of and during the election campaign. Its manifesto for J&K, among other commitments, committed itself to (1) restructuring the Constitution of J&K into federal set-up by setting up separate regional councils for J&K; (2) opening of Damchok-Kailash Mansarovar route to promote religious tourism and trade; (3) introducing a bill in the new Legislative Assembly seeking to constitute Delimitation Commission for delimiting the Assembly constituencies as required by law; (4) adopting a comprehensive employment package for unemployed educated youth and granting stipend to the unemployed educated youth; (5) meeting all the pending demands of refugees of 1947, 1965and 1971; (6) resolving the problem of the West Pakistan refugees (mostly Dalits) of 1947; (7) addressing grievances of different groups of minorities in all the three regions of the State by establishing a Minorities Commission; (8) retrieving the lakes like Mansar and Surinsar in Jammu; (9) evolving a mechanism and position to monitor reservation policy in government jobs provided for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes; and (10) granting ST status to Pahari-speaking people.
The Congress, which has been sharing power with the NC since January 5, 2009, has not done anything to fulfill the promises it made almost six years ago. The people of Jammu province are political not that naïve that they don't understand things. They understand everything and those who underestimate them and their political acumen only hurt their own interests. |
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