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| BJP leadership bunch of confused and non-committed persons | | |
RUSTAM
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Apr 10:The BJP MLAs made a mockery of themselves in and outside the Legislative Assembly on Friday, when the inter-district recruitment bill was adopted in an amended form to ensure that the Scheduled Caste (SC) communities shall continue to get 8 per cent reservation in the district cadre posts (class 3 and class 4 posts) across the state. It was expected that the confused and ambivalent BJP MLAs and BJP office-bearers would make a fool of themselves and it actually happened.
Unclear as their stand was and divided as they were, the BJP MLAs and the party president Shamsher Singh Manhas aired different views on the issue. Leader of the BJP Legislature Party Chaman Lal Gupta expressed himself in favour of the amended bill and patted himself saying he was the only member of the Select Committee who gave a note of dissent. "We want rule of law to prevail. The bill has sown seeds for disintegration of the State. We must now go one step ahead and start provincial-wise recruitment so that Jammu region also gets its due share'', he said, and added that the "Civil Secretariat has become a den of one community''. What he said was a contradiction of sorts, which also suggested that the BJP has no clear Jammu-specific agenda.
He should note that the amended bill has benefited the people of Jammu province in the sense that while the people of Jammu province get 8 per cent share in the district-cadre posts in Kashmir, none from Kashmir can get any district-cadre post in Jammu province.
Chaman Lal Gupta was not the only BJP MLA who displayed bankruptcy of sorts. BJP MLA from Jammu East Ashok Khajuria, who had become a laughing stock in the Assembly a few days earlier by terming revenue surplus as budget surplus, also did the same. He took an altogether a different stand. He said his party was opposed to the bill. At the same time, however, he welcomed the passage of the bill saying it has not affected the SC community.
That the BJP MLAs were a confused lot and that they did not know as to what they should do could be seen from their ridiculous stand that they would "boycott afternoon session of the Assembly…" But one of their colleagues from Hira Nagar, Durga Das ignored the boycott call and not only took part in the proceedings during the afternoon session but also sang a song eulogizing Assembly Speaker Mohammad Akbar Lone. He sang the song twice and the song was: "Tum Hamein Chaho Hum Naheen Chahein Aisa Kabhi Naa Ho Sakta, Pita Apne Balak Se Bicharke Sukh Say Kabhi Na So Sakta''. He addressed the song to Mohammad Akbar Lone, with the treasury benches hailing Durga Das's gesture with thumping of desks. Why not? After all, he went with the ruling coalition.
Commenting on this faux pas on the part of Durga Das, Ashok Khajuria said: "He couldn't be informed about the boycott decision". What he said was unbelievable and ridiculous. All of them were together in the Assembly Hall and in the Central Hall of Legislature. Insiders have told the Early Times that it was a deliberate move to keep Durga Das uninformed so that he could take part in the afternoon session.
It is significant to note that the PDP and the BJP MLAs, barring Durga Das who made common cause with the ruling coalition, virtually worked in unison and both the parties boycotted the post-lunch session of the Assembly, thus sending a signal that the BJP was as anti-SCs as the PDP and that it simply hoodwinked and misled the people of Jammu by asking them to organize shutdown.
Outside the Assembly, party president Shamsher Singh Manhas who does not know anything about politics, also made a mockery of himself by taking an altogether a different stand. He thanked the people for making bandh a success but, at the same time, he told media persons that his party is for a recruitment policy that enables anyone from anywhere in the state to apply for any post in any district. It is obvious that the BJP president was blissfully ignorant about the implications of what he said. What he said only meant that his party wanted the people from Kashmir to occupy more posts in Jammu province where the unemployment rate is already over 69 per cent, as against less than 30 per cent in Kashmir.
But what BJP MLAs and president said and did was not altogether unexpected. The BJP has all along functioned like this. It has no clear stand on Jammu. It talks of delimitation commission, but opposed it on the floor of Assembly. It talks of Article 370, but removed from its election manifesto that part which dealt with this Article. It talks of Jammu's empowerment but does not demand any instrument for ensuring its empowerment. Indeed, the BJP leadership is a bunch of confused and ambivalent persons. The role it played on the issue of inter-district recruitment has painted the BJP black and created a high wall between it and the SC community. The beneficiaries are the Congress and the JKNPP. |
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