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| Ensuring Congress’ demise: Azad’s support to NC not intriguing | | |
MINCING NO WORDS
NEHA
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Feb 19: Whenever Union Health Minister and former J&K Chief Minister Ghulam visits Jammu, he creates problems for the Congress. He makes statements which not only give a further fillip to factionalism in the party, but also provoke the people of Jammu province, who have on occasions reposed their faith in the party hoping that it would counter the separatists and votaries of autonomy and work for the political and economic empowerment of Jammu and national integration. It would not be out of place to mention here that the Congress has always contested elections in Jammu province after 1977 on two specific planks -- national integration and Jammu’s empowerment – and after the elections pursued policies towards the state adopted in 1947 and ruthlessly implemented by Jawaharlal Nehru and his successors – policies that support the votaries of autonomy and similar other divisive concepts.
Hence, the Azad’s February 18 Jammu suggestion that fullest possible support should be extended to the coalition government led by the National Conference should not intrigue anybody’s mind in Jammu and elsewhere. He only said but what the Congress central leadership has done in the past in order to enable the votaries of autonomy and self-rule to queer the Indian pitch in Kashmir. Did it not handover power to the votaries of self-rule in 2002? Did not it give the protagonists of self-rule full freedom to make policy pronouncements and on issues relating to foreign policy? The answer is not far to seek. By collaborating itself with the protagonists of self-rule, it allowed the situation in Kashmir to deteriorate day by day.
Earlier, in 1975, the Congress central leadership had handed over the state power to the protagonist of autonomy and plebiscite on a platter overlooking the fact that the said protagonist of autonomy was not a member of the state legislature. That the Congress central leadership would bring down its own government in the state in 1975 and bring back to power the same man who had been dismissed and arrested in 1953 on the charge of “sedition” should leave no body in any doubt whatever that the Congress high command never wanted the Congress to become a strong force in the state. So, what Azad has suggested is consistent with that ensure-the-demise-of-the-Congress-in-J&K line.
Otherwise, how could Azad urge his supporters in Jammu to extend unflinching support to a party that stands for greater autonomy, demilitarization and withdrawal of the anti-terror laws, that has challenged the very accession of the state to India and that has willfully jeopardized the legitimate political and economic rights of the people of Jammu province. To say that he took this line only to settle score with JKPCC president Saif-ud-Din Soz and snub those in the party who are for rotational chief minister-ship would be to cross the line. Azad has suggested what he believes in and what he believes in is that state power must remain in the hands of the controversial Kashmiri leadership, which has little or scant regard for India. The people of Jammu province understand all this. They are not very happy with the Azad’s suggestion. They are unlikely to forgive Azad and others of his ilk. It would be very difficult for the Congress face the Jammu electorate as and when elections are held in the state.
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