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| Assembly session: All parties vocal, Cong silent | | STARK REALITY | | RUSTAM
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Sept 29: The battle lines are drawn. All parties have opened up their cards and indicated that they would use the assembly session commencing on Thursday as an opportunity to promote their respective agendas and corner each other. It can be said that the National Conference and Chief Minister would be at the receiving end. It can also be said that it would be really difficult for the floor managers and the National Conference think-tanks to ensure smooth functioning. The situation is such. Everything is hot. Besides, there is total disarray.
The National Conference trouble-shooters know all this and, hence, they may try to deflect the attention away from the real issues. It is not for nothing that senior National Conference leader and MLA from Kupwara, Saifullah, has said that he would move a resolution in the assembly seeking settlement of the so-called Kashmir issue. It is obvious that he has decided to take this extreme step at the behest of the party high command that doesn't regard Jammu and Kashmir a settled issue.
Significantly, however, the National Conference-led government, which otherwise demands day in and day out revocation of or dilution in the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and Disturbed Areas Act (DAA) and raises its pitch on these issues every now and then to hoodwink and mislead its communal constituency in Kashmir, is unlikely to move any resolution on these two central legislations. It is clear that the National Conference's no-holds-barred campaign against AFSPA and the DAA is motivated and designed to arouse communal passions in the Valley. In fact, the National Conference was never interested in holding the assembly session at the present juncture when the tempers are running high and the whole of the administrative apparatus collapsed, with even the civil secretariat not being able to function in the real sense of the term. Nearly 70 per cent staff doesn't turn up to discharge their official duties. Speaker of the assembly has made it clear that there would be practically nothing from the government side that could be discussed in the assembly and that the session is being convened simply to fulfill the constitutional requirement. This is the situation. It's a sad reflection on those at the helm.
The rabble-rouser People's Democratic Party, which, like the National Conference, has become quite irrelevant even in Kashmir, has made up its mind to corner Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and his dysfunctional and corrupt government on each and every issue - on the issues of "human rights" situation, 109 killings, the AFSPA, the prevailing chaotic and anarchical conditions in the Kashmir Valley, continuous curfew and so on. It has also resolved to rake up the Kashmir issue and seek its final solution and put pressure on the already in-serious trouble National Conference government so that all those arrested under various charges are set free. There is no doubt whatever that the wounded People's Democratic Party would leave no stone unturned to settle score with the National Conference and retrieve the ground it has lost over the period to the more radical Islamists subject to the condition that the party attends the assembly session. There are reports that the Muftis' outfit may boycott the assembly session.
The otherwise clueless and controversial BJP and the Panthers Party have also made its intentions public. The BJP, which has already urged the people of Jammu to observe a complete shutdown on Thursday to register their emphatic protest against the fundamentally Kashmir-centric 8-point package announced the other day by the Government of India, has declared in unequivocal terms that it would not only oppose tooth and nail the autonomy demand and demand seeking revocation of or dilution in the AFSPA, but would also move a resolution in the assembly seeking constitution of delimitation commission so that the assembly constituencies are delimited de novo and people of Jammu province obtain their due share of representation in the legislature. Ironically, it is the same BJP whose all the 8 legislators had in 2002 conspired against the people of Jammu province, joined hands with the National Conference government and supported that amendment that practically banned delimitation of constituencies till 2037. The BJP has also planned to move a no-confidence motion against the government, a move unlikely to fructify considering the fact that it doesn't have the required numbers.
As for the Panthers Party, it, like the BJP, has made it amply clear that it would vehemently oppose the autonomy demand and any move that is calculated to demoralize the armed forces. It has said no to the demand seeking withdrawal of or dilution in the AFSPA. Besides, it has stated that it would take on the government because it has utterly failed to discharge its constitutional and administrative obligations. "We will target the government on failure of governance," it has said. The government of India has described it as "governance deficit."
In other words, all the political parties, barring the Congress, have made public what they plan to do during the 10-day-long assembly session. It doesn't augur well for the Congress party. It is sharing power with the National Conference whose credentials are being questioned in Jammu, in Ladakh and in all other nationalist constituencies. It cannot afford to observe silence at a time when every political party has taken one stand or the other. It has to speak out, assert and make its presence felt. It must say here and now that it would make common cause with those speaking for India and against those speaking against India, the Indian Army, the Indian institutions, the AFSPA and so on. |
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