news details |
|
|
| Opportunity for PDP, BJP to deliver | | | Early Times Report
jammu, Apr 4: India is a democratic country. Every five year, people elected Governments of their own in the States of Indian Union. This is also true of the Union Government. In J&K, the life of the Legislative Assembly is five years. The Governments so elected are representative in character. The people go through the elections manifestoes/vision documents of all the political parties taking part in the electoral exercise and vote for a party whose election manifesto/vision document appeals to them or reassures them that the said party, if voted to power, will redress their grievances and meet their legitimate aspiration, be it political, be it economic or be it social. The fact of the matter is that they elect members to the legislatures through whom they want themselves to be represented.
The people of Jammu and Kashmir are part and parcel of the Indian polity and, hence, they also exercise their right to franchise to elect a representative Government.
In 2014, people of Jammu and Kashmir also went to the polls to elect representative Government. The four major players in the electoral arena were National Conference, Congress, BJP and PDP. The National Conference sought vote on the autonomy plank and won only 15 seats in the 87-member House. It won 11 seats from Kashmir, 4 from Jammu and none from Ladakh. The PDP sought the mandate on the basis of its election manifesto, called Aspirational Agenda, which, among other things, talked about Centre-State relations, self-rule, Pakistan, stakeholders in J&K and several emotive issues. The PDP won 28 seats - 25 from Kashmir out of 46 and three out of 37 from Jammu province.
The BJP, which sought mandate on the basis of its Vision Document, won 25 in Jammu province and came out of the electoral exercise in Kashmir and Ladakh minus everything. The BJP failed to open its account both in Kashmir and Ladakh. The vision document that the BJP released during the election campaign in November 2014 was basically nation and Jammu-centric. The Congress could capture only 12 seats - five from Jammu, four from Kashmir and three from Ladakh. The Congress sought votes on regional planks, as also on the plank of Centre-State relations based on the 1974 Indira Gandhi-Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah Accord on the basis of which Sheikh Abdullah came back to power in the State after a long gap of 22 years.
The 2014 verdict was a unique electoral verdict. It was not only a highly fractured verdict, but it established beyond any doubt that the people of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh were vertically divided into three groups. People of Kashmir voted for those parties which stood for greater autonomy, self-rule and the 1974 Accord. People of Ladakh rejected NC, PDP and BJP and voted for the Congress, which sought votes essentially on the Union Territory plank. People of Jammu voted overwhelmingly for national integration and empowerment and against all other parties, including the PDP, the NC and the Congress.
Now that the PDP and the BJP have again re-stitched alliance and formed Government, it is time for both the parties to deliver and respect the nature of the mandate. Mehbooba Mufti, who took oath of office and secrecy today in low-key oath taking ceremony at Raj Bhawan, Jammu, was right when she after assuming the office said that all the Ministers have to perform and in case they failed, the PDP and the BJP will not come into power again. As there are other alternatives available.
"This is not a challenge only for Mehbooba Mufti but for all of us. If we don't perform, people won't give us a second chance because there are alternatives available," she told her Ministers at the civil Secretariat after taking oath of office and secrecy. She only spoke the truth. She only hinted at the NC and the Congress, who had been muddying waters in Kashmir after the demise of Chief Minister Mufti Sayeed. Her perform or perish comment must make the PDP and BJP Ministers to discharge their obligations towards the people of the State. This is the last opportunity for them. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
STOCK UPDATE |
|
|
 |
| BSE
Sensex |
 |
| NSE
Nifty |
|
|
| |
CRICKET UPDATE |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
