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| Sham continues to rake up the discrimination issue | | Jammu Cause -- I | | RUSTAM
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Dec 8: In December 2008, it was Sham Lal Sharma, presently Health Minister in the Omar Abdullah-led coalition government, who had taken the plunge and went to the Shri Amarnath Yatra Sangharsh Samiti (SAYSS)'s headquarters, Geeta Bhawan, Jammu, to make common cause with it and extend unstinted support to those spearheading the land-restoration movement. He did it on August 1. He took the lead and other Congress leaders, including RS Chib, presently Medical Education Minister, Raman Bhalla, presently Revenue Minister, Yogesh Sawhney, former minister, and a host of other Congress leaders followed in his footsteps and upped their ante against those opposing the reallocation of the Baltal land to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB).
The Congress MPs Madan Lal Sharma and Lal Singh too took the plunge and joined the land-restoration movement in a big way. Almost all the JKPCC office-bearers and senior leaders, including Mangat Ram Sharma and Dharmpal Sharma, also did not lag behind. So much that they openly denounced the Congress national spokespersons - Jayanthi Natrajan and Manish Tiwari and the in-charge of Congress media cell and presently Union Law Minister Veerapa Moily for their stand on the Amarnath land issue. It bears recalling that those controlling the media at the national level had condemned those who had been spearheading the land-restoration movement. While Tiwari had even gone to the extent of equating those carrying on the Amarnath land movement in Jammu with the Hurriyat Conference, Moily had dubbed those demanding restoration of the Baltal land to the Shrine Board and constitution of delimitation commission as anti-national.
The fact of the matter is that almost all the senior Congress leaders in Jammu had with one voice identified themselves with the Jammu cause. They had taken up the issue at the highest level, met the Prime Minister, the AICC president and UPA chairperson, the then Home Minister and who not in New Delhi and persuaded them to see reason and concede the Jammu's popular demand. It would be no exaggeration to say that it was the pressure from the below that had compelled the Jammu-based Congress leaders to review their stand on the land issue and take up the cause the people of Jammu held very dear. They had taken this stand because they had come to realize that if they held aloof any longer, their party would be totally rejected by the Jammu's electorate.
In other words, convinced that the Congress party had become thoroughly unpopular in Jammu because of its negative role to the Amarnath land agitation, as also because of the July 1, 2008 decision of the then Ghulam Nabi Azad-led government to overturn the High Court's directions in this regard and take back from the Shrine Board that small piece of land at Baltal (Kashmir) that had been transferred to the Shrine Board for creating additional facilities for the Amarnath Yatris on a temporary basis during the Yatra period, the Jammu-based Congress leaders had finally decided to identify themselves with the Jammu cause. Their stand was politically correct. Had they not adopted a positive attitude, the Congress party would have come out of the 2008 electoral exercise minus everything. Those who had supported the movement won the election and those who had become party to the July 1 unconstitutional and undemocratic decision lost the election. They lost the election miserably. The Congress could capture 13 seats out of a total of 37 in the Jammu province. The erstwhile Doda district alone returned to the assembly 5 out of six legislators belonging to the Congress party.
It would not be out of place to mention here that almost all those who were Ministers in the Ghulam Nabi Azad-led government had to bite dust and they included Mangat Ram Sharma, Gulchain Singh Charak, Mula Ram, Jugal Kishore Sharma, to mention only a few. They were party to the decision under which the state government had taken back from the Shrine Board the Baltal land. They got defeated because they had failed to feel the electorate's pulse. The prevailing political situation in Jammu province is no different from what it was in 2008, when it had become almost impossible for the Congress leaders to face the people. Sham Lal Sharma has, it seems, seen the writing on the wall and taken a step that he, feels, would help the Congress regain the ground it has lost over the period. And, hence, what he said at Bani on December 5 or what he said on December 7 while clarifying his position on Jammu needs to be viewed in this context. (To be continued) |
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