Senior Jammu-based leaders of the Congress party on Friday blamed the ruling Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) for “sowing the seeds of discord” in the Jammu region.
Talking to Kashmir Post senior Congress leader and former deputy chief minister, Tara Chand, said, “We want to keep Kashmir, Ladakh and Jammu together. Our party doesn’t believe in divisive politics at all.”
Senior vice president of Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee and former minister, Sham Lal Sharma said that Jammu division “is heading towards a disastrous. Serious efforts are being put to divide the state on communal lines.”
He alleged that BJP “is provoking the people of Kathua to demand for handing over of the rape and murder case of an eight year old nomad girl to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
“Instead of creating such a situation, the BJP is in power and they could have handed over the case to the CBI,” he said.
“Our heads should hang in shame but we are playing politics over the incident.”
Sharma said, “If BJP has no faith in Crime Branch of Jammu and Kashmir Police, its leaders should tell it openly instead of provoking the people.
“Tactics of the BJP leaders can lead to the division of the state,” he said adding that one community was being pitted against another.
“This all is being done for electoral politics and nothing else.”
He said that Congress had suspended its activist, who participated in Ekta Manch Rally, who were demanding the release of the SPO arrested in connection with the rape and murder of the victim.
Sharma said that Rohingyas were non-state subjects and the BJP had failed to deport them.
He said that in Centre the BJP was ruling for past four years and in J&K for three years. “We don’t know whether they (Rohingyas) are security threat or not, but the BJP statements about them have already vitiated the environment in Jammu division,” he said. “There should be humanitarian approach towards Rohingyas.”
The former minister alleged that the ruling coalition in the state had failed on every front particularly what he said in controlling the unabated “bloodshed in Kashmir and on the borders.”
“All their promises have proved to be hoax and now they want Kashmir like situation in Jammu too,” he said.
He said that PDP promised dialogue and end to the sufferings of people of the state, but had failed. “In hinterland and on the borders, the people of the state are getting killed and present regime is only adding to the miseries of people,” Sharma added.
BJP sowing seeds of ‘Discord’ in Jammu: Tara Chand
