Fearing peoples’ wrath over its inability to support the demand of locals to hand over the Rassana murder case to the CBI, the ruling BJP was forced to change the venue of its high-profile state executive committee meeting from Kathua to RS Pura.
The two-day executive committee meeting would be held at the “safe” border village of Suchetgarh in RS Pura subdivision on March 31 and April 1, and is likely to be attended by party’s J&K incharge Avinash Rai Khanna.
“Despite having an equal partnership in the government, BJP ministers have failed to fulfil the demand of Kathua locals to hand over investigation of this heinous crime to the central agency for a fair trial,” a senior party leader, who wished not to be quoted told Kashmir Post, adding, “There is a perception among people that both state and central leadership of the party have virtually abandoned the people of Kathua only to appease Kashmir-centric groups.”
Notably, two BJP ministers had promised that the case would be handed over to the CBI but due to pressure from certain quarters, the party has abandoned this demand.
There is a feeling among locals of Kathua that the Crime Branch of the J&K Police is investigating the case with an alleged biased mindset to implicate some “innocent” people to appease some vested interests.
Kathua and Samba districts had played a very crucial role in the victory of BJP in the 2014 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections but after recent developments, the party leadership “did not have the guts to hold its executive meeting at its citadel”.
Interestingly, no party leader was ready to come on record to give a reason for the shifting of the venue from Kathua to RS Pura for the executive meeting.
Meanwhile, party legislators are also anxiously waiting for the meeting to give vent to their anger as they were not allowed to effectively air their grievances against party ministers during a meeting with national general secretary Ram Madhav on March 16.
Ram Madhav, during his meeting with party legislators on March 16, had a tough time pacifying party members who lambasted their own ministers. After the meeting, a BJP MLA said instead of behaving like BJP leaders to listen to grievances of own party legislators, Ram Madhav was more particular about endorsing the stand of the PDP.
BJP forced to change meet venue to RS Pura post Kathua fallout
