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| Inter-District Recruitment: Congress creating difficulties after difficulties for itself | | |
RUSTAM
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Mar 22: The Congress is harming its interests in Jammu province with each passing day. Sometimes it is walking into the PDP trap and sometimes the NC's, wittingly or unwittingly. It walked into the PDP trap and surprised and angered everyone in Jammu on March 8, when it allowed it to introduce anti-women disqualification bill in the legislative council, which was accepted without any discussion whatsoever. Ever since then, the Congress leaders have been trying their level best to come clean, but with no result.
As if it was enough to damage the cause of the party in the Jammu province, which houses all the Scheduled Caste communities, members of the joint-select committee Ashok Kumar, Abdul Gani Vakil and R S Chib, all Congress legislators, unlike Harsh Dev Singh of the Panthers Party and Chaman Lal Gupta of the BJP, became a party to the joint-select committee report that sought ban on inter-district recruitment. Abdul Rahim Rather headed the joint-select committee. Both the NC and the PDP are ardent supporters of a system that reserves the district cadre posts for the candidates belonging to their respective districts. The reasons are obvious. It appears, they do not want anyone from Jammu to serve and stay in Kashmir.
Harsh Dev Singh, who did not attend the meeting of the joint-select committee, made it clear that his party was for a ban on inter-district recruitment but it would not tolerate any injustice with the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. He favoured reservation for the Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe communities. As for Chaman Lal Gupta, he gave a three-page note of dissent making it loud and clear that his party would not allow the government to ban inter-district recruitment.
The government on Saturday declared that it would introduce bill during the current budget session in order to ban on inter-district recruitment. The bill based on the report of the joint-select committee, if adopted, would harm the interests of the Scheduled Caste communities, which under the existing rules obtain government jobs in all the districts of Kashmir, including the districts of Leh and Kargil, under the reserved category.
Kashmir and Ladakh, which is administratively part of Kashmir province, are the areas where members of the Scheduled Caste communities are conspicuous by their absence. In other words, Kashmir province doesn't house any Scheduled Caste community. On the other hand, it is the Jammu province that is the abode of a number of Scheduled Caste communities. In fact, they constitute more than 20 per cent of the region's population. And, it the members of these communities who are the target of the NC and the PDP, with the Congress also joining hands with them for reasons best known to it overlooking the fact that its support to the official bill seeking ban on inter-district recruitment would hit it hard and jeopardize its long-term electoral interests in the region.
It may be mentioned that as per clause 6 of the draft bill candidates belonging to a particular district will be eligible to apply for the district level posts. That means all the posts in the Kashmir's all districts would go to the inhabitants of Kashmir, thus eating the share of the Scheduled caste communities who otherwise need a very special treatment considering the fact that they have suffered for centuries because of the caste system.
Besides, such a ban would mean a situation under which no non-Muslim, like the Jammu-based Muslim, would have the opportunity to serve in Kashmir. In effect, it would mean regionalization and communalization of the service sector and the negation of pluralism. Such an eventuality has to be averted at any cost because it would have dangerous impact on the state's polity. In fact, it would disintegrate the state in no time. The ball is in the court of the Congress. If it so likes, it can ensure the defeat of the proposed bill. It has too because it has no other option left. |
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