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| Congress becoming unpopular in Jammu day by day | | LOOKING BACK -- II | | Rustam
Jammu, Feb 16: In fact, one of the Congress leaders made public the letter written by L.K. Advani to the Speaker of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly in this regard (read refugees and their demands). The letter was made public to establish that the approach of the BJP towards the problems being faced by the migrants was not positive. The letter D.O. No. 16016/3/2003 - K.V., dated 13 August 2003, among other things, read: "Please refer to your D.O. letter No. LA-85/PS/o3, dated 3.7.2003 regarding approval by Government of India of the proposal submitted by the State Government for rehabilitation of Border Migrants from Akhnoor Tehsil. The proposal has been examined. The Ministry is of the view that this rehabilitation proposal is likely to have larger repercussions because there would be similar demands from others living along IB/LoC seeking migration every time there was tension at the borders…"
Similarly, the Congress leaders ridiculed the BJP demand seeking establishment of a delimitation commission, saying the BJP had no moral right to rake up this issue, since it itself was a party to the constitutional amendment that debarred the authorities from delimiting the Assembly constituencies till 2026. So much so, on December 22, former Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad took the BJP to task during his Raipur-Domana election rally for its role and regretted that the BJP leaders went beyond the democratic confines by blaming the Congress for not delimiting the Assembly constituencies. Such was the nature of the Congress propaganda that Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister P.K. Dhumal had to acknowledge that his party's legislators remained "silent when the NC government perpetrated a crime by amending the Representation of People's Act". He acknowledged the "lapse" on the part of the BJP legislators while addressing a public meeting in the Raipur-Domana Assembly constituency itself.
Besides, the Congress leaders consistently accused the BJP of playing "politics of deception". In this regard, they would always refer to the BJP's approach towards Article 370. They would laugh at the BJP leaders, saying the latter always talked about abrogation of this Article, but removed from the manifesto that portion which dealt with it. They also exploited to the hilt L.K Advani's Pakistan statement that "Mohammad Ali Jinnah", the father and founder of Pakistan and an ardent believer in the pernicious two-nation theory, was "secular". So much so, the Congress candidates time and again pooh-poohed the claim of the BJP that it alone could neutralize the scourge of terrorism and countered the BJP campaign by saying that it was during the BJP-led NDA rule that the then Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh escorted the dreaded terrorists, including Masud Azhar, to Kandhar (Afghanistan), who later conspired against India and became instrumental in the December 13, 2001 terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament.
The Congress propaganda against the BJP should have helped the former. But it did not happen. The reason could be that the Congress legislators had also not opposed the amendment to the Representation of People's Act and that the State Government had not done anything substantial to mitigate the hardships of the border migrants as well as refugees from West Pakistan. Similarly, the Congress' attack on the BJP on the issues of Article 370, Jinnah and terrorism did not have much impact on the electorate. At the same time, however, it has to be acknowledged that, unlike the BJP, the Congress under the leadership of Ghulam Nabi Azad contested elections basically on the developmental plank. It did not rake up any emotive issue during the entire election campaign.
The story of the Congress and the BJP, in short, is that both the national parties committed serious mistakes and failed to win the number of seats they were expecting.
The moral of the story is that all the Jammu-based Congress ministers lost the elections because they had identified themselves with those in Kashmir who had outraged the sensitivities of the people of Jammu province by snatching from the Shrine Board the Baltal land. The Jammu-based Congress ministers are doing exactly the same even today and the result has been that the Congress has become thoroughly unpopular in Jammu province day by day. The Congress leadership would do well to reform itself and adopt a fair approach towards the people of Jammu province, who are seething with anger. (Concluded) |
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