Early Times Report
JAMMU, Jan 22: Strange things are happening in Jammu and Kashmir. On the one hand, the arch-rival of the PDP, the NC, has been asking PDP president Mehbooba Mufti to either form coalition Government with the BJP at the earliest and fulfill the dreams of late Mufti Sayeed or end political uncertainty by paving way for fresh elections in the State so that the people elect a new Government, on the other hand, the Kashmir unit of the BJP, unlike the Jammu-based BJP leaders of any standing, have started taking cudgels with Kashmiri legislators like independent MLA from Langate, Er Rasheed.
The NC's stand on the current political deadlock in the State over the formation of the Government is quite understandable. After all, the out-on-the-limb NC leaders want to make the prevailing confusion further confounded to promote their party's own interests in the Valley. Their whole approach is politically motivated and it is calculated to embarrass the PDP leadership.
However, what is more important is what the Kashmir unit of the BJP has been doing in the Valley for quite sometime now. Unlike the Jammu-based BJP leaders, including the former Ministers, who stopped making any political statement after the formation of the PDP-BJP coalition Government in March last year, some Kashmir-based BJP leaders, including former party's Kashmir unit spokesperson Khalid Jehangir, have been on occasions taking on non-BJP Kashmiri leaders and posing as if they are there in the party to defend the Indian cause in the restive Kashmir Valley. There are several instances which serve to prove this point. The point is that it is the Kashmir-based BJP leaders, unlike the Jammu-based BJP leaders, who made many political statements in the local media and represented the BJP's viewpoint on national televisions.
The latest example is the scuffle with Engineer Rasheed and his supporters at Pulwama. The workers of Rasheed and the BJP exchanged blows during the former's sit-in at Pulwama the other day. The dharna was organized to lodge a protest against the alleged killing of a civilian in firing by forces during a demonstration in Naina Batpora village of the district. The BJP activists not only asked Rasheed to lift the dharna but also accused him of being "an agent of Pakistan".
That the BJP workers dubbed Rasheed as a Pakistani agent was nothing but a big slap on the face of the Jammu-based BJP leaders, who swallowed all humiliations, kept their mouth shut and not made any political statement. This was the case when the BJP was in the Government and after the collapse of the Government following the sudden demise of Chief Minister Mufti Sayeed, the only statement that the Jammu-based BJP leaders, including former BJP Ministers, have been making is that they hope that the PDP-BJP coalition Government would be in place sooner than later and that they have already extended support to Mehbooba Mufti. The ball is in the PDP's court, they have been saying. One may try his level best to find if any of the Jammu-based BJP leaders made any other statement, he will come out of the exercise minus everything. Yes, one of the BJP leaders did issue a political statement on Tuesday but it was in favour of the Mian Nawaz Sharif Government.
The fact of the matter is that the Kashmir unit of the BJP has shown the spineless Jammu-based leaders the way by taking on Rasheed and terming him Pakistani agent. Will the Jammu-based BJP leaders muster courage and speak for India and speak for the ideology on the slogan of which they got a massive mandate from Jammu only to subvert it and ditch its own constituency in lieu of practically nothing? |
