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| Jammu & Kashmir: BJP is the biggest loser | | | Early Times Report
Jammu, June 29: PDP-BJP coalition government was destined to collapse and it finally collapsed on June 19 - 38 months after its formation. It was an unnatural formation like J&K State is an unnatural formation. The BJP being a national party took a right decision to withdraw its support to Mehbooba, known more for her separatist and Pakistan-friendly interventions and statements than for administrative and take-along-all qualities. The government fell the same day and Governor's rule was imposed within hours. It had to be to avoid constitutional crisis.
As expected, BJP's arch-political rivals, including Congress, dismissed the BJP's claim that it withdrew support in the larger national interest and save the state for an impending disaster. Its rivals accused the BJP of quitting the Mehbooba government to please its vote-bank and replicate 2014 in 2019. One can endorse and counter the claim given the state of affairs the nation has been in for quite some time now. Hence, no need to reflect on the BJP's argument and the opposition's counter arguments.
However, one has to accept the fact that the Centre's intervention in the restive state had become imperative. Had the Centre not intervened, things would have worsened. It would have hurt the nation the most. A peep into the political history of J&K post-January 19, 1990 suggests that the Governor/President's Rule had helped the nation contain the situation and restore normalcy in the state. It was only because of the Central rule that the 1996 Assembly elections were held in a peaceful atmosphere. There was hardly any violent incident either during the Lok Sabha or the Assembly polls in 1996. It is a different matter that Farooq Abdullah who had betrayed the nation in January 1990 leading to the Central intervention again captured the top executive post in J&K.
The point is that the Governor's Rule would prove a boon for the nation in J&K given the nature of the polity the Kashmiri leaders created over the years. It would be very difficult for the terror outfits and their mentor Pakistan to conduct anti-India operations like they conducted with utmost ease during the "infamous" Mufti rule. What the nation witnessed in Kashmir after the imposition of the Governor's Rule is only proves that. It would also help hasten the process of developmental activities in all the three regions of the state like it happened in the past. People of Jammu and Ladakh always welcomed Governor's rule because it used to be by and large fair and state, as opposed to Kashmir, centric.
Now, the question is: what after the Governor's rule? One thing is absolutely clear: The PDP and the NC would never join hands, notwithstanding the fact that they are two sides of one and the same coin. The Congress is there. It can shake hands with any of the two, as it shook hands with the PDP in 2002 and shook hands with the NC a number of times, last time in 2008. But the problem is that the Congress is a spent bullet. It has hardly any support-base either in Jammu (37 MLAs) or in Kashmir (46 MLAs). Yes, it has its support-base in Ladakh, but this Cold-Desert region returns only four members to the 87-member House.
However, there are cogent reasons to believe that the NC could perform well as and when polls are held. It has over the period captured some of the space of the PDP in Kashmir, core constituency of both the parties. During the past two years, the NC did try to cultivate the Hurriyat by telling it that it was their friend, and not an enemy. Farooq Abdullah even asked the Hurriyat to go ahead with its Azaadi demand and also asked his cadres to join the Hurriyat's Azaadi crusade. Only time will tell what ultimately happens.
It is the BJP, which is the biggest loser. It would be living in a fool's paradise if it thinks that its decision to withdraw support to PDP has conciliated the alienated Jammu and estranged Ladakh. Buddhists of Ladakh and Hindus of Jammu have welcomed the fall of Mehbooba. But they have not pardoned the BJP for its acts of omission and commission committed during the past 40 months as an ally of the PDP. It was considered a B-team of the PDP during those 40 months. The BJP can win over the estranged Buddhists and Hindus of Jammu, its core supporters. Will it? Yes, it can provided it is willing to (1) scrap divisive Articles 35-A and 370; (2) grant UT to Ladakh and status of statehood to Jammu; (3) deport Rohingyas; (4) grant minority rights to minority Hindus, Sikhs and Jains; (5) grant citizenship rights to Hindu-Sikh refugees from Pakistan; (6) give due compensation to the refugees from Pakistan-occupied-J&K; (7) give what the internally-displaced Kashmiri Hindus based in Jammu have been demanding since their migration in 1990; and (8) gives the minorities in the state to understand that it is really and genuinely a party with a difference.
All in all, it can be said that the Governor's Rule is a God-sent opportunity for the BJP to do what the Congress and other non-BJP parties ruling the Centre at different points of time didn't do for the sake of what they call secularism. The best thing for the BJP to do would be to pursue the line of Syama Prasad Mookerjee: complete integration of the frontier and sensitive state into India and its reorganization so that the people of each region administer their own affairs themselves, of course, within the ambit of the Indian Constitution.
Remember, J&K state consists of three disparate regions of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh. Its very composition has created more problems than resolving any of the problems the nation witnessed after October 26, 1947, when the state acceded to India as per the terms of the Indian Independence Act of 1947. |
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