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| Who is telling the truth? Sadhotra or Sharma? | | | Early Times Special
JAMMU, July 24: The issue of setting up a Central university in the State is now hotting up with a section of students in the Jammu region resorting to agitation. Their allegation is that the proposed university, to be set up in Jammu earlier, is now being shifted to the Kashmir region.
Simultaneously, an IIM (Indian Institute of Management) is also being set up in the Kashmir valley. This has led to allegations from some leaders in the Jammu region that by opening two institutes of excellence in the Kashmir region, the Jammu region is being discriminated against.
The State Government has decided to maintain a pregnant silence and this has added to the confusion.
The Chief Minister, Mr Omar Abdullah, has done his bit in angering the Jammuites by suggesting that a campus of the same university can be set up in Jammu. As if that is a favour to be granted by him.
The National Conference and the Congress are running a coalition government in the State. However, the way things stand, the National Conference has been reduced to the status of being a Valley-centric party and the Congress, by default, has come to represent the Jammu region.
In such a scenario, it is but natural that the Congress leaders will lean more heavily towards the Jammu region from where the party has won most of the seats in the Legislative Assembly.
Conversely, the National Conference has got the bulk of its MLAs from the Kashmir region and it is naturally inclined more towards the Valley.
As far as the issue of setting up the proposed university is concerned, the leaders of the two parties seem to be taking diametrically opposite views. This becomes clear when one analyses the statements made by the Congress MP, Mr Madan Lal Sharma, and the NC legislator, Mr Ajay Sadhotra.
A statement issued by Mr Sharma claimed that he has met the Prime Minister, Mr Manmohan Singh, the Congress chief, Mrs Sonia Gandhi, and the all-powerful All-India Congress Committee general secretary, Mr Rahul Gandhi, and discussed the issue threadbare with them.
Mr Sharma has claimed that the proposed university was indeed to be set up in the Samba district of the Jammu region. In fact, according to some officials, at least 5,000 kanals of land had been identified for acquisition in the district for setting up the university.
The Congress MP is worried that the shifting of the proposed university to Kashmir will harm him, as also his party in Jammu. He has been trying hard to convince the Central leadership to set up the university in Jammu, as originally envisaged.
He has failed, at least so far.
It is not very different from what had transpired during the Amarnath agitation last year when the pleas of all the three Congress MPs from the Jammu region, Dr Karan Singh, Mr Sharma and Mr Lal Singh, on the issue were ignored by the Central leadership.
Mr Sadhotra, apparently at directions from the CM, claimed on Thursday that no decision has been taken so far about the venue of the proposed university. He listed three places each from the Jammu and the Kashmir regions as possible venue for the university.
Mr Sadhotra is trying hard (and in vain) to cover the flanks of his leadership (read Omar). His stance clearly contradicts the Congress MP’s statements on the issue.
It can’t be that both Mr Madan Lal Sharma and Mr Ajay Sadhotra are saying different things, contradictory to one another, and yet telling the truth. One of them is telling the truth. One of them is lying.
Who is telling the truth? Who is lying? The masses would like to know so that confusion ends and work can start on setting up the university, wherever, at the earliest.
May be the State Government can clarify and come out with an official statement regarding the facts.
Or else, in the days to come, it should be ready to deal with an agitation in the Jammu region.
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