Jammu, Sep 17: J&K Congress working president Raman Bhalla on Sunday said the Government of India (GoI) has failed to address the legitimate aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
“The BJP government has failed to live up to the spirit of accommodation and reconciliation towards the realisation of the legitimate political aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir,” he said, adding, ‘Today democracy in J&K is facing onslaughts from no other than the ruling party itself.”
He added, “Ideally the political and ideological difference should have been put aside while dealing with a sensitive region like that of ours. The major stress of the government should have been to assuage the miseries of our unemployed youth who regrettably have grown up in conflict. The need of the hour called for the adoption of a magnanimous approach to give our youth new hope and rescue them to safe shores, but nothing substantial is being done by the incumbent central and LG government to achieve that end.”
Bhalla said compelling narratives of progress, modernity and development justifying its “unconstitutional” actions in J&K have fallen flat and that the “aggressive” policies of the ruling BJP towards the region have hurt its development path and its economy.
“The ruling BJP was on a mission to disenfranchise J&K people with its selective policies and a coterie of federally-appointed officers, bereft of democratic bearings, calling the shots. The so-called Naya J&K of BJP, besides being low on the democratic mooring is also opposite to the idea of Naya Kashmir propounded by the Congress government,” Bhalla said, adding, “The downpour of fresh investments, job extravaganza, and infrastructure amplification is nowhere visible on the ground. Far from delivering on much-touted development promises, the people of J&K are continuously being denied their rights, and having a popular government in place is one of them.”
The Congress leader said that the BJP by imposing its agenda on the country’s agenda, has done much harm to the country than to J&K. “Today we see top BJP members making lofty promises on development. How can people trust them given the fact they are the ones who deprived people of J&K of their identity? It is needless to say that due to their wrong decisions, the picture of the entire region looks grim,” he said.
The ruling BJP’s record in J&K reveals a mounting set of failures on every front ranging from employment generation, investment and infrastructure augmentation, Raman said, adding that the GoI’s policy towards Jammu and Kashmir must encapsulate all dimensions with peace-building efforts at the heart of it.
Unless a positive environment was not actualised by addressing the political aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir, achieving anticipated development goals was unlikely, Bhalla said.
