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| Sagar ridicules Congress, Azad criticises Congress Ministers | | Congress Convention Of Helplessness | | EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, May 20: It was hoped that the Congress delegates, who attended the day-long convention in Srinagar and which was addressed by senior Congress leaders, including AICC general secretary Janardhan Diwedi, in-charge Jammu and Kashmir Congress party Mohan Prakash, JKPCC president Saif-ud-Din Soz and union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, would discuss in detail the issues facing the people inhabiting Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh and suggest a definite action plan calculated to redress their grievances and expand the support-base of the Congress party in the state. It was also hoped that the Congress convention would focus its attention on the 2008 election manifesto and declare that it will leave no stone unturned to make the state government (of which the Congress is the most crucial part) fulfill the promises it had solemnly held out, including the commitment that the Congress would amend the state constitution to federalize the state polity and set up in Jammu a regional council. But nothing of this sort happed.
The delegates simply gathered, discussed the relations between the Congress ministers and party workers and between the former and the party, befooled people by saying that there was no factionalism in the party, adopted resolutions urging the AICC president to reconstitute the JKPCC and state government to adopt 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments to empower the elected panchayats, panches and sarpanches, suggested formation of block development councils across the state and dispersed. None of the top-ranking Congress leaders took on the NC for its acts of omission and commission and for ignoring the Jammu province, the Congress's core constituency. Azad did criticize the state government for its failure to prevent deaths of infants in the G B Pant hospital and other hospitals and that's all. Significantly, it is the Jammu-based Congress ministers who hold the portfolios of health and medical education and both are the loyalist of Soz. In a way, Azad took on his own party ministers. He did not say anything against Chief Minister Omar Abdullah. If at all he said something against him, it was indirect and vague. His main attack was on the Congress ministers who hold the portfolios of health and medical education.
To be more precise, those who addressed the convention only made fool of themselves. They also sought to befool the people by giving an impression that it wants to work and deliver but it has failed because the Congress is part of a coalition government. The truth is that they indirectly acknowledged that the Congress party just cannot work and deliver in the state and that it can only request the state government, which is headed by NC president and Chief Minister Omar Abdullah. They only expressed their helplessness.
That the NC doesn't care for what the Congress stands for could be seen from what Law and Parliamentary Affairs and Rural Development Minister Ali Mohammad Sagar said yesterday at a time when Soz, Azad and others in the convention were underlining the need to empower the panchayats, panches and sarpanches by adopting the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments. As for Soz, he said: "It is quite unfortunate that the state government is not taking seriously the amendments to the Panchayati Raj Act. It is due to the slackness on their part that we are not able to reap the benefits of this Act. We cannot wait for more time and this should be taken up at the earliest". As mentioned, the Congress convention adopted a resolution urging the state government to adopt and give effect to these amendments.
What did Sagar say while addressing a public rally at Tikipora, Lolab in Kupwara district, in this regard? He denounced the opposition (read the Congress and the PDP) for creating confusion in the minds of the people and asserted that the panchayati raj institutions put in place by the state government have been adequately empowered and decentralization of powers to the grass root level has been ensured. "The recently held Panchayati elections and their empowerment has been one of the remarkable achievements registered by the government and now the frustrated party has resorted to falsehood and propaganda. The participation of record number of people in the elections is a strong indicator of the people's faith in good governance and policies being implemented by the present government headed by Omar Abdullah," Sagar said. He also said that it was this empowerment of the panchayati raj institutions that has left the "opposition perturbed" and advised the critics to "introspect rather than make hypocritical statements".
Did Sagar not ridicule the Congress leadership by making such statements? Of course, he ridiculed the Congress leadership and made it loud and clear that the Congress party has no other option but to dance to the NC's tunes as before.
The moral of the story is that the Congress leadership in the state neither barks not bites and that it only makes fool of itself by attacking the state government. People are not that fool. They know that the state government cannot survive even for a moment if the Congress withdraws support to it.
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