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| From trifurcation to regional council | | Congress' U-turn | | Early Times Report
JAMMU, June 18: The Congress, which was rejected by the people of Jammu region in the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, has been exploiting the unpopularity of the BJP to the hilt. Actually, it has seen in the unpopularity of the J&K BJP and its ministers and other lawmakers, as also in the prevailing anti-BJP environment in the region a God-sent opportunity to recover the political space it lost to its main political rival in 2014 because of its acts of omission and commission and by playing to the tunes of their Kashmiri masters.
The Congress, like the Panthers Party, which was also rejected by Jammu, has offered its full support to the AIIMS Coordination Committee (ACC), which is fighting for the cause of Jammu and struggling to achieve its two stated goals - establishment of AIIMS in Jammu and an early completion of the artificial lake project over Tawi river. If the Panthers Party has been actively participating in the AIIMS-sponsored activities without carrying its party banners and also holding protest demonstrations in Delhi at Jantar Mantar and in front of Parliament, the Congress party too is not missing any opportunity to support the ACC and identify itself with the Jammu sentiment. So much so, its leaders have raised the issue of AIIMS at different places in the region as, for example, at Poonch and Rajouri. Besides, it is holding press conferences at regular intervals to expose the "misdeeds" of the BJP and its "anti-Jammu policies".
The other day as well, a number of senior Congress leaders addressed a press conference in Jammu to extend their support to the AIIMS, castigate and expose the BJP and its pro-Kashmir policies and demand for Jammu region a political instrument that could end discrimination with its people. It was senior vice-president and former minister Sham Lal Sharma who demanded a regional council for Jammu, saying this is the only alternative left to end discrimination with Jammu people. "Jammu has suffered lot of discrimination on development front for the past over five decades as the successive governments remained focused on Kashmir Valley. A regional Council for the region can only end this disparity", Sham Lal Sharma said. He didn't spare even his own party that remained at the helm for years.
However, his demand for a regional council constituted a complete U-turn. Almost four years back, he had virtually demanded trifurcation of the state, saying that the people of Jammu region and Ladakh were fed up with the Kashmiris' politics of greater autonomy and that it was time for Jammu and Ladakh to get segregated from the "oppressive, discriminatory and pro-autonomy" Kashmir. At Bani in Kathua district in the presence of almost all the top party leaders, including JKPCC chief Saif-ud-Din Soz and Mangat Ram Sharma, he had said "let Kashmir get autonomy, let Jammu get the status of statehood and let Ladakh get UT status" - a demand that had raised hue and cry in Kashmir and created storm within the Congress as well with the Valley-centric Jammu-based Congress leaders approaching the party high command for making it initiate action against Sham Lal Sharma.
In any case, Sham Lal Sharma did well to dismiss the existing politico-constitutional and administrative set-up as Kashmir-centric and anti-Jammu and anti-Ladakh and demand a regional council for Jammu. However, it would have been better had he and others in the Congress demanded division of the state into three states considering the fact that the marriage between Jammu and Kashmir and between the latter and Ladakh is unnatural and that there is absolutely nothing that is common between the three regions of the state. |
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