Expressing shock over the defeat of the BJP in the Bihar Assembly elections, Prof Hari Om, senior BJP leader and former Political Advisor to J&K BJP president, on Thursday appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to intervene in J&K to help Jammu and save BJP.
The intervention of the Prime Minister is a must in the troubled-state because the PDP has been meticulously muddying the Indian waters in the state by pursuing separatist and Pakistan-friendly policies, he said. At the same time, Prof Hari Om congratulated the Prime Minister who didn’t allow Chief Minister Mufti Sayeed to vitiate the atmosphere in the Valley by making irresponsible statements during the recently-organized rally at Srinagar.
The intervention of the Prime Minister, who, along with others, built up the party brick by brick and who knows much about J&K, will help the party restore its pristine position and play the role it is required to play to promote the paramount national interest in the state and obtain for the neglected Jammu province the share in the polity and economy it deserves as part and parcel the state, he said.
“J&K will become BJP-free in case no corrective measures were taken at the earliest,” he said, and added that a strong BJP is the need of the nation in J&K, as the Kashmir-based and Valley-centric parties like the PDP, the NC and the Congress are all responsible for the prevailing situation in the state in general and the Valley in particular. They have messed up things in Kashmir, he asserted.
BJP leader said that Jammu province must get the office of Chief Minister for three years like the Congress so that its neglected people feel that they and the people of Kashmir are equal partners in the government and regretted that the PDP got the Chief Minister’s chair for a full term, despite the fact that the PDP and the BJP have 28 members each in the Assembly.
“The office of Chief Minister can’t be the sole preserve of Kashmir. Jammu province is two-time that of Kashmir and its population is equal to it, if not more. Jammu province must get the office of Chief Minister,” said Prof Hari Om, adding that all the Chief Ministers of the state till date belonged to Kashmir Valley and to a particular religious sect.
Prof Hari Om further said that “Jammu province has little or no say in the governance of the state, as the PDP has grabbed such portfolios with considerable political weight and funds as Home, Finance, Revenue, Agriculture, Education, Tourism, Law and Parliamentary Affairs, General Administration Department, Labour, Employment, Culture, Science and Technology, Public Works, Public Distribution, Rural Development and so on”. Not only these vital portfolios, the PDP has also grabbed crucial positions in the judiciary like Advocate General, C.I.D., Public Service Commission and Corporations and Boards, the BJP leader claimed, and added that Jammu province also has no say whatsoever in the internal security-related matters, as the PDP has put its persons at right places in the Home Depart, Law and General Administration Departments as well as C.I.D. and in the Judiciary as, for example, Advocate General. Jammu has only a little more than 33 per cent representation in the all-powerful Cabinet, which takes policy decision, he said, and asserted that it is for the first time that Jammu province has been excluded from the Cabinet in such a manner.
Prof Hari Om expressed hope that the Prime Minister will surely take cognizance of what ails the state and the BJP and ensures that all correctives measures are taken to make the party strong in this strategic region. The best thing for the Prime Minister to do would be to break the PDP-led coalition government by withdrawing support to it and create conditions leading to the state’s trifurcation into Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh.
