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| Jammu Cantonment Board elections | | | | Although elections to the Jammu Cantonment Board are not of much political significance, since the board is bereft of any real powers, yet the victory of all the seven candidates supported by the National Conference is a big moral booster for the party and particularly its Vice President Sardar Harbans Singh, who is the most probable party candidate for the forthcoming assembly elections from Gandhi Nagar constituency, under which falls the Cantonment Board area. It should ring alarm bells to the Congress, whose leader, Raman Bhalla is the sitting MLA from Gandhi Nagar, Jammu assembly constituency. This constituency is believed to be having strong base of the Congress, with the party winning election from here all through after a separate unit of Congress was formed in the state, converting the National Conference into Congress by G M Sadiq in 1964. But for one term between 1996 and 2002 Congress has been winning this seat comfortably. In 1996, the seat was wrested by the BJP, whose candidate Choudhary Pyara Singh, who was only a recent entrant into the saffron party then won the seat with a little margin. Raman Bhalla, the sitting MLA from Gandhi Nagar assembly constituency, who has also served as a minister for two years, is believed to be easily accessible to his electorates and exerting to get their works done. Any complacency on the part of Congress over this even insignificant defeat can cost the party dearly. Already the Congress, which controls all the three assembly seats of Jammu city presently, has lost much of its face as a result of cross voting in the elections to the post of Mayor Jammu Municipal corporation, despite the fact that the numerical strength of Congress in JMC is more than that of BJP, who has two times outmaneuvered the state ruling party by wresting the post of Mayor JMC. The comfortable victory of National Conference candidates in the Cantonment Board, the elections to which were held after twelve years on Sunday, should also be an eye opener for the BJP, who should feel concerned about its falling stocks in Jammu city, which used to be its fortress in the past. The inroads made by Kashmir centric National Conference, who is the main opposition party in the state legislature and who has lately been identifying itself with the aspirations of the separatists in Kashmir should also cause serious concern to the protagonists of regional identity of Jammu and who stand for Jammu region getting its due place in the comity of the state. This victory of the NC at a time when the party is not the ruling one but in opposition is particularly ominous. The BJP and all other groups who claim to be standing for preserving the distinct identity of Jammu region and serve interest of its people need to have introspection as to why the people of Jammu are no more reposing confidence in them and are even going to stand by the party which is generally believed to be anti Jammu. |
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