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| Congress-NC in race for retaining Gujjar support | | (News Analysis) | |
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, May 30: She came. She saw and in the process conquered the heart of the Gujjars of Jammu and Kashmir. This sums up Saturday's visit of the AICC Chief and UPA chairperson, Sonia Gandhi, to Jammu. One would not have expected a leader of the stature of Sonia Gandhi to come all the way from Delhi for inaugurating a Gujjar centre for culture and heritage but she came with the sole purpose of wooing Gujjars back to the Congress.
In fact not only the Congress but the National Conference too made a sincere attempt at winning the hearts of the Gujjars. While Sonia Gandhi linked Gujjar welfare programmes to the era of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, Farooq Abdullah and his son, Omar Abdullah, talked about their Gujjar lineage. The two referred to Sheikh Abdullah and Begum Akbar Jahan's contribution to the uplift of the nomadic tribes. No doubt the National Conference has remained a powerful regional party in Jammu and Kashmir and a section of the Gujjar community has been its traditional supporter in the Assembly and in the Lok Sabha elections but as far as the Congress is concerned it has its areas of influence in Gujjar dominated villages and tehsils.
What was then the compulsion for the Congress Chief and the National Conference leadership to carry out an exercise meant for winning the support of the Gujjars.
Reports indicate that both the Congress and the National Conference have been worried over the way the PDP had been making inroads in the Gujjar dominated areas. In a bid to retain the Gujjar support Sonia Gandhi and the National Conference leadership dished out assurances on the uplift of the community. Support of Gujjars for the Congress in Jammu and Kashmir could be of great electoral advantage for the party in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Delhi where there is a sizeable number of Gujjar voters.
In reality the idea for inviting Sonia Gandhi to inaugurate the Gujjar centre had been conceived by the PCC Chief, Saif-ud-Din Soz. And Sonia had come to Jammu on the invitation of Soz. Reports said that the decision of Masood Choudhry, vice chancellor of the Babha Ghulam Shah university and a former senior police officer, to join the congress is a feather in the Congress camp because he is the most influential Gujjar leader. That Gujjars have been traditional supporters of the Congress is evident from the fact that top community leaders, including Mian Bashir, Ch. Mohd. Aslam and others, have strengthened the party bases in the Gujjar dominated areas.
After joining the Jan Morcha, which was floated by V.P. Singh, in 1987 Mufti Mohd. Sayeed has been instrumental in wooing a number of Gujjar leaders to his side. Even after he floated the PDP he has been trying to angle as many Gujjar leaders as possible and already Rafiq Hussain Khan and others are in the PDP net. This way the Congress and the National Conference are keen to register support not only from the Gujjars but also from the Pahari community. Recently both the Congress and the National Conference leaders attended a Pahari conference in Poonch-Rajouri belt where they promised that they will take up with the central Government the issue of grant of ST status to the community
Hence Sonia Gandhi had come neither for handing a stick to the dissidents in the Congress nor the carrots to the loyalists. She simply felt the pulse when she saw Soz and Azad hardly exchanging any glances. She could sense that though she has entrusted the party affairs to Soz she cannot ignore Azad who received thunderous cheers when he got up to address the meeting in the Gujjar centre. Well it is not yet known whether Sonia had realised that supporters of Azad had managed to bring a bigger crowd to the venue of the meeting than others could. This was done possibly to convey to Sonia that Azad should not be treated as a spent up force. But she must have seen that the rousing reception she received right from the airport to the far side of Narwal had been arranged by the Revenue Minister, Raman Bhalla. Bhalla had spent more than two days in supervising the exercise on giving cosmetic touches to the route from the Airport to Channi by setting up arches, buntings and posters.
If Sonia had come to win the hearts of Gujjars she has succeeded. If she had plans of bringing about a reconciliation between the two factions in the state unit of the congress she is yet to show progress.
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