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| Courtesy Mufti, BJP fulfills ambition of ruling Kashmir | | | Early Times Report
SRINAGAR, May 4: Tuesday, May 5th, will mark a historic day in Kashmir as the conventionally loathed Bhartiya Janata Party's Ministers and its one-odd local Muslim associate----former separatist leader Sajjad Gani Lone----would begin to operate as rulers in the strife-torn valley.
Kashmiris turned up in large numbers for the polling and gave 25 seats to PDP, 12 to National Conference and 4 to Congress.
With no prominent politician contesting on its ticket, BJP failed to bag a single seat in the Valley of 46 segments in its mych-hyped "Mission-44 Plus". It had claimed to win more than 44 seats and thus form the government of its own, without seeking any political party's support. BJP got all of its 25 seats in the Hindu-dominated Jammu region.
Never after the then Prime Minister and head of the Janata Party government at the Centre Morarji Desai's historic visit to the alliance partner Mirwaiz Maulvi Mohammad Farooq's downtown residence in 1977 had any BJP leader arrived in Srinagar to a positive note till the politician-poet Atal Behari Vajpayee's reception in 2003. With his historic "Jumhooriyat, Kashmiriyat, Insaniyat", Vajpayee had grown popular among the Kashmiris. That era of remarkable receptivity ended soon, when Congress party's Dr Manmohan Singh replaced Vajpayee in 2004. For all practical purposes, BJP remained restricted to Jammu where sometimes it had 4 seats, sometimes 7 and sometimes 11.
With the Muslim context, BJP got a shot in the arm in the victory of its Rajouri district leader Abdul Ghani Kohli. A retired engineer and son-in-law to the influential Gujjar spiritual and political leader Mian Bashir Ahmad of Kangan (father of former NC Minister Mian Altaf Ahmad), Kohli was inducted in Mufti's government---first as Minister of State and later elevated to the Cabinet rank.
BJP's second and the last Muslim face is Peoples Conference chairman Sajjad Lone, who, on Prime Minister Modi's recommendation, was inducted by Mufti as Minister incharge Animal Husbandry and Science & Technology. Sajjad for years remained associated with separatist groups and allegedly enjoyed command over PC's guerrilla arm, Al-Barq. After his father Abdul Gani Lone's assassination in a suspected militant attack in 2002, Sajjad turned against Pakistan and militants and fielded proxy candidates in the Assembly elections.
Even as none of Sajjad's proxy contestants won in 2002, PC's estranged activist Engineer Rashid became the first MLA from the separatists in 2008. Later, in 2009 Sajjad contested Lok Sabha elections directly and also fielded retired Doordarshan officer Salamuddin Bajad in 2014 parliamentary elections. He lost both. Finally Sajjad created history by directly contesting Assembly elections first time in 2014 and winning two seats for the PC.
All other BJP Ministers are completely aliens in Kashmir. How the Kashmiris would treat them, particularly those of the RSS or the counterinsurgency background, will become clear this week. As of now Congress has plans of leading a protest rally against BJP from JKPCC headquarters to the Civil Secretariat on Tuesday. Independent MLA Engineer Rashid is organised another march from Hsndwara to Srinsgar. A section of traders has also called business shutdown. |
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