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| Mufti hits nail on the head, equates Cong with NC | | Empowering Panchayats | | NEHA
JAMMU, June 27: Notwithstanding his common cause with those who have been terming the erstwhile Doda district as Chenab Valley and seeking division of Jammu Pradesh on communal lines in order to prepare the ground leading to the establishment of an autonomous Muslim Greater Kashmir, PDP patron and former Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed has done well to hit the nail on the head and hold the Congress party equally responsible for the failure of the state government to empower the elected panchayats, panches and sarpanches. He had yesterday lambasted the Congress party while addressing one day convention of senior party leaders and workers of Jammu Pradesh in Jammu. He reflected on various issues facing the people of the state, including the unemployed youth, and compared his rule with the rule of the present NC-led coalition government. He asserted several times that the state government has failed on all fronts and bemoaned that the people across the state have been suffering because of the misrule of the present dispensation. His reflections were candid, unambiguous and convincing, leave alone his Chenab Valley formulation.
However, the most notable aspect of his whole address was his blistering attack on the Congress. He did not agree that the NC alone is responsible for not empowering the elected panchayats, panches and sarpanches. On the other hand, he held the Congress equally responsible for not doing anything aimed at empowering panchayats, panches and sarpanches so that they could manage local affairs at local level and meet the immediate needs of the people at the grassroots level. Attacking the Congress party, he said: "There are only talks of empowering the panchayats. But where are the powers? Is it somebody's personal fiefdom that they don't give rights to panches and sarpanches? It seems that the Congress Party which is a part of the coalition government is also not desirous of giving powers to panches and sarpanches".
It was perhaps for the first time that Mufti Sayeed directly took on the Congress party. The Congress, which is likely to share power with the PDP after the next assembly elections in the state, just cannot accuse Mufti Sayeed of targeting it. For, it is more responsible for rendering the elected panchayats, panches and sarpanches as unreal and ineffective for all practical purposes. The Congress has not even once put pressure on the dictatorial NC so that these local self-governing institutions are strengthened and panches and sarpanches able to cater to the immediate needs of the people.
The Congress is not an ordinary political formation in the state. It is the most important part of the ruling coalition. In fact, the NC cannot rule the state even for a moment without the support of the Congress party. Had the Congress even once held out a threat that it would walk out of the government in the event of the NC not adopting and implementing in full the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments, the NC would have taken no time in doing the needful, as it is power hungry and for retaining control over the state power it can even compromise its ideology. (Abdullahs have on several occasions made a mockery of themselves by diluting their stand on autonomy just for the sake of personal power and profit.)
The truth is that the NC ministers, especially the likes of Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ali Mohammad Sagar, have repeatedly snubbed the Congress leadership over this issue saying the state government had already empowered the panchayats, panches and sarpanches as per the existing laws in the state and that there was no need to adopt and implement the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments. One may try his/her level best to find if any of the Congress leaders ever contested the likes of Ali Mohammad Sagar and he/she will come out of the exercise minus everything.
Mufti Sayeed appears absolutely correct when he takes on the Congress party and equates it with the NC as far as its attitude towards the local self-governing institutions in the state is concerned. The fact of the matter is that Congress is more responsible, as compared to the NC. It is the Congress party that has abdicated its authority in favour of the NC for reasons best known to it. It is extremely unlikely that the Congress leadership would muster courage and assert its position in order to force the NC to empower panchayats, panches and sarpanches. The Congress leadership is not just chicken-hearted, weak, and even corrupt to the core, but also quite dishonest. That it is dishonest can be seen from the fact that it has repeatedly violated the people's mandate to keep the Kashmiri leadership in good humour and enjoy loaves and fishes of office at the cost of its Jammu constituency. It is a different story that the opposition parties in Jammu Pradesh have failed to exploit the Congress's dishonesty and politics of use and throw. The Jammu leadership needs to ape Mufti Sayeed and conduct itself in the manner the PDP patron has been acting for quite sometime now.
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