news details |
|
|
| J&K needs Govt that is state and nation-centric | | Reconciling inter-regional contradictions | | Neha
Early Times Report
JAMMU, Jan 15: The task of government formation in J&K is not that easy. The nature of the mandate is such. The fact of the matter is that the J&K Governor NN Vohra on January 8 sent a report to the Union Home Ministry suggesting that immediate formation of government was difficult in the state. The state could come under Governor's Rule any time from now. It is imminent. Actually, the acting Chief Minister Omar Abdullah the same day created a constitutional crisis by telling the Governor that he was not prepared to continue as the caretaker Chief Minister any longer, as the state needed a fulltime administrator to administer the state and address the issues facing the people. At the same time, he tore into the PDP leadership saying it would be held responsible if the state is brought under the Governor's rule. He again offered support to the PDP so that it could form the next government in the state. Since the new government in the state has to be in place latest by January 19, the Governor had to report the whole matter to the Union Government to avert the impending constitutional crisis.
As said, the poll verdict this round in the state was highly fractured. In Jammu province, the people, including those from the constituencies where the Hindu and Muslim voters were almost evenly balanced, have voted overwhelmingly for the BJP obviously with a view to enabling their province to become an important part of the new government. The BJP has won 25 seats out of 37 in Jammu and was front runner in another 7, including six in Jammu province and one in Kashmir. As for the other parties, which are considered Kashmiri parties, the Congress won five seats, the PDP and the NC three seats each and one seat went to an independent candidate. The Congress and the PDP didn't win even a single Hindu seat and the NC sprung a big surprise by winning two Hindu seats of Nagrota and Bishnah. The message of Jammu was loud and clear. The people of Jammu not only want the office of the Chief Minister, which till date remained the sole preserve of Kashmir, but also a government that bridges the political and constitutional gulf between the state and the centre. An overwhelming majority of population in Jammu and such social groups as the refugees from West Pakistan, SCs, STs, OBCs and daughters of Jammu want Article 370 to be scrapped because they believe, and rightly, that abrogation of Article 370 is the only way if they are to obtain status similar to the ones their counterparts in the rest of the country enjoy. They also want Article 35-A that empowers the state government to grant or not to grant citizenship rights to the people other than those of Kashmir. Some opinion leaders have described the Jammu's poll verdict as a verdict in favour of statehood. In Ladakh, the people didn't give a single seat to either the nationalist BJP, which in May had won the lone Ladkh Lok Sabha seat, or to the sub-regional outfits like the pro-autonomy NC and the pro-self-rule PDP. There the people voted overwhelmingly for the Congress. The Congress captured three out of four seats, which happened for the first time in the region's electoral history, and the remaining fourth seat went to an independent candidate, who tasted political waters in the region for the first time. The people of the trans-Himalayan region obviously voted for Union Territory status and it was the Congress which contested the assembly election essentially on the UT status plank. A very vast majority in Ladakh doesn't want any kind of truck with the Kashmiri leadership and their argument is that the Kashmiri leadership wants in the state a dispensation that is outside the political and constitutional organization of India and that is one region and one sect-centric. Separation from Kashmir and complete merger with India is their age-old demand. It is over 67-year-old demand. It is Kashmir that has actually given a fractured mandate. The PDP, which stands for self-rule, India-Pakistan joint-control and joint-management, soft borders, porous Line of control, demilitarization, revocation of AFSPA, dual currency, Islamic banking, restoration of Article 370 to its original position and dialogue with Pakistan and Kashmiri separatists won 25 seats out of 46 seats in Kashmir; the NC, which stands for autonomy, demilitarization, withdrawal of AFSPA, Article 370 and also for a meaningful dialogue with Pakistan, captured 12 seats; the Congress whose single-point agenda was, and is, to remain in power in the state and which can tie-up with any political party, won four seats. Five seats were captured by independents, who are known for their soft secessionist views. The BJP, which for the first time contested the election in Kashmir very seriously, again failed to open its account in the Valley. In fact, the Kashmiri Muslims came out of their houses in large numbers to ensure the defeat of the BJP. All this shows that the people of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh have voted for different ideologies and it is this that has made the task of government formation very difficult. It's a very complicated mandate. It was not surprising when PDP president Mehbooba Mufti after meeting with the State Governor NN Vohra on December 31 made a statement that though her party enjoyed the support of 55 MLAs, she was not in a hurry to form the government. Almost identical statement was made by the state BJP president Jugal Kishore Sharma the following day. The BJP delegation which met with the Governor on January first told media persons outside the Raj Bhawan that they had demanded more time from the Governor. The fact of the matter is that both the parties are there where they were on December 23, when the election results were declared. Both the parties continue to maintain that for them all the options are open knowing it full well that they cannot form a government that has little or no representation from Kashmir or from Jammu. The government has to be such that have equal representation in the government, that is not hostile towards New Delhi and that reconciles inter-regional contradictions. And it is now almost clear that political players in the state would take their own time to form the next government and that the sufferers would be the people. It is also clear that the NC and the Congress are out of the race. The credit goes to the PDP and the BJP in general and people of the state in particular who rejected both these parties and voted overwhelmingly for a change. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
STOCK UPDATE |
|
|
 |
| BSE
Sensex |
 |
| NSE
Nifty |
|
|
| |
CRICKET UPDATE |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
