Shadow Correspondent
Jammu, Apr, 28
Agitated over flimsy and freakish excuses given by the State government to the ECI for postponing the Assembly elections in J&K, a strong battalion of Panther activists spearheaded by Mr. Harsh Dev Singh Chairman JKNPP and Mr. Yash Paul Kundal State Secretary Young Panthers staged a thunderous protest demonstration at Exhibition ground in Jammu today. While accusing both the GoI and the Governor’s administration for deliberately denying the people of the State their democratic rights, the infuriated protesters raised anti-BJP slogans and torched the effigy of GOI and Governor’s administration. Lambasting the State govt run by the Governor’s administration for creating hurdles in the way of the Assembly elections in J&K without any rationale, Mr. Harsh Dev Singh regretted that democracy in the State was being guillotined ruthlessly for the political expediencies of the ruling party at the Centre and vested interests of Governor’s administration. “BJP knowing the fact that it has lost the ground in its core constituency is hell bent to procrastinate the Assembly polls while the Governor and his coterie seemed to have tasted the pleasure of power and have become reluctant to part ways from it. What a shame that for their petty gains the people have been kept deprived of their right to choose representatives and to have an elected govt in the State”, angry Harsh rued.
Describing the appointment of “special observers” by the EC as futile exercise’, Mr. Singh divulged that despite the meeting of representatives of all the political parties with the full Election Commission earlier who in one voice advocated to hold Parliamentary and Assembly polls at the earliest, the committee of three eminent members were constituted by the poll body to assess the ground situation before taking the decision to hold the Assembly elections in the State. “Though Lok Sabha elections were announced to be conducted on time, the fate of Assembly elections was marred with suspense. In view of successful LS elections besides the observers report submitted to the ECI which had proposed to hold Assembly elections in June this year, the frail and insubstantial excuses given by the State officers to ECI for deferring the said polls sounded frivolous and defied all logic. How would Assembly elections affect Eid and Amarnth ji pilgrimage? How would the polls become hindrance for the tourist season in the State? , asked Harsh.
Terming bureaucracy in J&K as the biggest stumbling block in the way of Assembly Elections, Mr. Harsh Dev Singh wondered over how the orders pertaining to information sought from the Deputy Commissioners for appointment of Nodal Officers were rescinded within couple of hours after the meeting of State officers with the ECI. “If the State officers were to be summoned to New Delhi for their opinion on Assembly polls, then why did ECI constitute the committee of ‘special observers’? Is this not contempt of Supreme court ruling which said that elections to the prematurely dissolved Legislative Assemblies in the states should be held within a period of six months? If the Municipal, Panchayat and Parliamentary elections could be held in the state, then what was the hitch for EC to conduct the Assembly elections? Whether the present State dispensation was purportedly posing obstacles to delay and deny the Assembly elections by quoting outlandish reasons on the directions of GoI?”, Harsh sought reply to volley of his questions. Prominent among those who spoke on the occasion included Rajesh Padgotra, Gagan Partap, Parshotam Parihar, Khajoor Singh, Rajeshwar Sambyal, Nirmal Kishore, Sukhjit Singh, Rampaul Sharma, Rashpaul Singh, Udhayveer Singh, Kulbir Singh (Kala), Arun Khajuria, Subash Charak, Rohit Sharma, Jagdish Raj besides others.
