Jammu, June 10: National Panthers Party (NPP) president and former minister Harsh Dev Singh on Saturday alleged governance deficit and growing culture of corruption in J&K saying the erstwhile State was in ruins after its reorganization and demotion to the level of UTs.
He criticized the LG administration for “abusing the public exchequer in providing government bungalows and palatial estates mansions to the BJP workers in defiance of prevalent norms and court rulings while selectively hounding out the opposition leaders”.
“It provided the most glaring example of the compromised governance and patronized corruption in J&K. Not only were the government bungalows provided to the BJP leaders but the entire furniture, fixtures and other luxury items including smart TVs, refrigerators and electronic gadgets had been provided free of cost to the said illegal occupants,” he alleged. “Likewise, the government vehicles had been placed at the disposal of ex-MLAs of the BJP in addition to security vehicles provided exclusively to them to the exclusion of even the most senior opposition leaders. Not only that, several BJP leaders who had encroached on State lands, forest lands and Roshini lands have not been evicted and allowed to retain the same while dispossessing the common masses and other poor farmers from their marginal land holdings.
The NPP president added, “The BJP leaders further seemed to have been granted immunity in cases involving criminal misconduct and financial improprieties thereby providing them a differential treatment as against the commoners who were made to bear the rigors of the law even on frivolous complaints.”
Alleging governance fiasco and operation of the rule of whim in J&K, Singh sought the intervention of the President of India “to ensure the restoration of constitutional guarantees, equal treatment and justice to all in the troubled UT of J&K so as to prevent further alienation of the general masses”. He also called for an early return of democracy in J&K and the restoration of its statehood status.
