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| Challenges before new BJP State president | | | Early Times Report
Jammu, Dec 21: The J&K unit of the BJP on Sunday finally got a new president in the person of Sat Sharma, who also represents Jammu West Constituency in the Assembly. As expected, senior BJP leaders, including Ministers spoke on the occasion to congratulate him, reflected on the party's performance and its organizational strength or otherwise, talked about the future of the party in the State and emphasized the need to put a good show in the upcoming urban local bodies' elections as well as panchayat elections. They also highlighted the achievements of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
They spoke on the expected lines, notwithstanding their limitations, which were many, including their lack of confidence and the Central leadership's changed stand on J&K, Pakistan and dialogue with Islamabad and Hurriyat leadership in the Valley.
Many stated that although the BJP entered into an alliance with the PDP professing a different ideology, the BJP also stuck to its own. They said so because they had to say so given the sensitivities of the people of Jammu region, its constituency. It is a different issue that the people of Jammu region think otherwise and believe that the party has already deviated from its core ideology and compromised everything it stood for not so long ago. A couple of BJP leaders declared that the BJP will continue to follow the path charted by leaders like Shyama Prasad Mookerjee. "Jahan Hue Balidan Mookerjee, Woh Kashmir Hamara Hai was our slogan in the past and it will ever remain so," a couple of BJP leaders said overlooking the fact that the PDP-BJP agenda of alliance says something totally different.
They reiterated the party's stand a day after Chief Minister Mufti Sayeed claimed, and very rightly, that he had changed the mindset of the BJP and obtained from the party a commitment that it will not touch any of the constitutional provisions of the State and that it will protect the State's special status that Article 370 conferred on it.
One of the top leaders refused to comment on the Chief Minister's statement that "changing mindset of BJP on J&K was his biggest achievement". He only said: Party is in alliance with PDP only for governance while on other ideological issues BJP still follows its own constitution and Jan Sangh foot prints. I can't say anything on that as the coalition is run on the agenda of alliance and nothing except that". His helplessness was easily discernible. He didn't take a clear-cut stand for obvious reasons. He and other local BJP leaders knew what their party high command wanted them to do in the State and, hence, their inability and flexibility.
The newly-nominated BJP president, as was expected, also spoke the identical language. The only deviation was his statement that the BJP under his leadership will "not play second-fiddle" to its coalition partner, as it has equal number of MLAs with the PDP. "I will follow (in) the footsteps of my predecessors and would work towards strengthening the party at the grassroots level…The party faces a litmus test in the upcoming elections to the civic bodies in the State.
My priorities would include making the party victorious in the upcoming elections to the civic bodies in the State," he said,
Challenges before the new president are many. He has to win back the trust of the estranged people of Jammu region. He has to rejuvenate the organizational structure with the help of those with a mass experience and committed party workers and ensure that Jammu gets what is its legitimate due in the governance and development of the State. These are not easy tasks considering the prevailing political situation in the region and disillusionment that has gripped the party' rank and file. The political environment is hostile and the opponents and critics of the BJP are many and they have very solid arguments to beat it and expose its failures, weakness and limitations. Besides, he has to tackle factionalism within the party; there are many groups and interests in the party.
The new president also has to come up to the level of the highly articulate PDP president Mehbooba Mufti, NC president and working president Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah, JKPCC president Ghulam Ahmad Mir and Panthers Party Chairman Harshdev Singh. All of them are very clear on all the issues concerning the State. He has to meet their challenge with solid arguments. Will he or will he not, only time will show. His biggest challenge is to establish by words and concrete action that the BJP will leave no stone unturned to defeat all those forces which have become quite active to get J&K segregated from the Indian constitutional framework.
Indeed, his task is very difficult. |
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