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| State BJP divided on key issues | | Contradictory stand on Oct 26 as holiday, U-turn on Mata Vaishno Devi tax | | Early Times Report
JAMMU, Dec 25: The state unit of BJP is a divided house. It doesn't discuss issues before making statements on them. That's the reason its top leaders are speaking differently at different places and causing confusion in the minds of the general public.
The latest example is the contradictory stand that two top BJP leaders took within 24 hours on the demand in Jammu for declaring October 26 as a state holiday. It was on this date in October 1947 that Maharaja of J&K took a historic decision and acceded his state to India as per the law on the subject.
While the people of Jammu and Ladakh consider October 26 a milestone in the political history of India and want the State Government to celebrate the state's accession on this day every year, most of the Kashmiri leaders observe this day as "black day", saying India forcibly occupied J&K, a view which is utterly non-sense.
On Tuesday, the J&K BJP general secretary (organization) said in Kashmir that the BJP never asked the State Government to declare October 26 as holiday. "We have not made any such demand to the Government. We are averse to the long list of holidays and are demanding that they should be reduced," he was quoted as saying. He made the statement when asked to respond to the list of holidays, which the State Government issued four days ago. The list of holidays didn't mention October 26.
A day after the state BJP general secretary stated that "we have not made any such demand to the Government", another senior party leader, who is a senior Minister in the Mufti-led PDP-BJP coalition Government, said in Jammu that the BJP will protest against the refusal of the State Government to declare October 26 a state holiday.
"It (BJP) would lodge a 'strong protest' over the decision of the State Government for not declaring October 26 as holiday. The party would register strong protest with the Chief Minister for not conceding to its demand of declaring October 26," he said while talking to media on sidelines of press conference.
That the two leaders of the party took contradictory stands on an important issue only suggests that there is no coordination among the party leaders or suggests that the BJP has decided to take one line in Kashmir to please the separatist constituency and another in Jammu to mislead its people.
Very significantly, the BJP leader, who said that the BJP would lodge a strong protest with the Chief Minister for not conceding the party's demand for declaring October 26 a holiday, also went back on his commitment that the BJP would ensure the withdrawal of 12.5 per cent "jaziya tax" on Mata Vaishno Devi Pilgrimage and similar other holy pilgrimages. "The tax is not applicable for chopper service to Vaishno Devi. It is imposed for all religious shrines of the state," he said.
The contradictory stand on October 25 as a holiday and the U-turn on "Jaziya tax" will further harm the interests of the BJP in Jammu province, where it is already at the receiving end owing to its various acts of omission and commission, U-turns and its "dangerous Kashmir policy". |
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