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| Congress top brass ignores popular sentiment | | Convention Left Workers High & Dry | | EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, May 20: It was expected that the Congress workers at the grassroots level, who were aware of the ground realities in the state in general and Kashmir in particular, would urge the Congress top brass at the May 19 Srinagar convention of Congress delegates to accept their demand seeking withdrawal of support to the National Conference-led coalition government and attack the Congress ministers themselves and it actually happened. Several Congress workers, including controversial MLA Dooru Ghulam Ahmad Mir, took on the NC-led government and urged the Congress top brass to sever ties with it. They expressed dissatisfaction over the style of functioning of the NC and the government it had been leading since January 5, 2009 and also took potshots at some Congress ministers who, they said, had hardly visited their own constituencies and not addressed the people's concerns. Earlier in April this year in Jammu, Union Health Minister and former JKPCC president and Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad had also criticized the Congress ministers and advised them to look beyond their constituencies. He had said the Congress ministers had become ministers of their own respective constituencies and it had resulted in trust deficit between the ministers and the Congress workers.
Ghulam Ahmad Mir was one of the main critics of the NC and the NC-led government and it was his presentation at the convention that prompted the All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary Janardhan Diwedi and in-charge Congress media cell to ask the delegates as to what they thought about the "future of NC-Congress coalition government". Responding to the response his query evoked from the delegates, Diwedi said: "Mir Sahib has pointed towards the non-cooperation of NC ministers and legislators in the day-to-day functioning of the coalition government. In such a scenario there are only two options available with us. One is that we have to come out of this government and be ready to face the elections. The other is that we should allow the government to continue".
The response of many Congress delegates to the options hinted at by Diwedi was on expected lines: Raising their hands in support of the suggestion that the Congress must come out of the government, they said "enough is enough" and that "time has finally come" for the Congress to sever all of its ties with the NC and the government it had been heading. Their charge against the NC ministers and legislators was that they had "hijacked the government and the benefits associated with it". Yet another argument advanced by the critics of the NC-led government was that the control of the NC over the roads and building and education portfolios, which earlier were with the Congress, had "sent a wrong signal to the Congress workers and activists" and that the NC was not interested in cabinet expansion, as the cabinet expansion would mean return of these two vital portfolios to the Congress as well as induction of three more Congress legislators in the council of ministers.
It was clear from transpired during the convention that bulk of the local Congress workers were fed up with the existing power-sharing arrangement and that they wanted the Congress to assert its position and authority in order to infuse life into the organization. However, the Congress top brass did not consider their suggestion, coupled with complaints against the NC. None of the senior Congress functionary supported their demand. On the contrary, the critics of the government were advised to maintain patience and not precipitate things in the larger interest of the coalition. In other words, the Congress top brass only left the critics of the NC left high & dry. It is obvious that the Congress convention in Srinagar has only strengthen the position of the NC at the cost of the Congress. There is no doubt that the Congress would pay a very heavy price for keeping company with the NC, which is very unpopular in Jammu and Ladakh and which has been losing popular support in the Kashmir Valley for quite sometime now because of its failure to deliver on any front, as also because its arrogance and insatiable lust for power and profit.
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