Shadow Correspondent
Jammu, Jan 24:
Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee has termed the mega publicity event of the visit of 36 central ministers as a flop show and an exercise in futility just to divert the attention of the Common masses from the burning issues in the country, but utterly failed to create any impact on ground in the absence of public response.
Addressing a crowded PC at party HQ here today. JKPCC President Shri Ghulam Ahmed Mir termed the visit as an event management of BJP & Modi Government, which came out to be a flop show. It is unfortunate that such a futile exercise was undertaken just to cover the failures of the BJP government at the centre to divert attention of the countrymen from the burning issues facing the country including large scale social and political upheavals resulting into the unfortunate down ward trend by 10 places, in the assessment of the index of democracies in the World apart already distressing trends in our economy. Shri Mir questioned the benefits of the mega publicity event to the people, at the huge expense of tax payers money, as the visiting ministers had nothing to offer to the people except to inaugurate the petty developmental works, a job meant to be carried out by a local Sarpanch. The lack of interest and response of the general public reflects the wisdom of the people, who had realized the publicity stunt of the BJP government.
Flanked PCC Vice Presidents and former Ministers Shri Mula Ram and Shri Raman Bhalla, Shri Mir said that on one hand the mainstream opposition parties and leaders are not free to carryout routine political activities and still lot of restrictions and vindictive steps of the government are in vogue, the BJP government tries to engage the people in such meaningless photo-ops, thus keeping the entire administrative machinery especially field functionaries on tenterhooks, instead of attending to the problems of the local population.
Lashing out at the vindictive and biased attitude of the administration towards opposition, JKPCC questioned the different yardsticks in the matter of basic security cover to opposition leaders in this sensitive state. The government and administration is extending all sorts of luxuries to the former legislators and even non-legislator leaders of the BJP including ministerial bunglows and quarters to most of them, apart from heavy security cover and vehicles to them, the top leaders of Congress and others are even deprived of the required security cover, to dissuade them to carry out their political activity in such a sensitive situation, when the top police officers are on record admitting more than 250 active terrorists in J&K, despite heavy security operations. Which democracy permits different yardsticks in the matter of security cover to the same category of people, who are vulnerable to the designs of terrorists, due to their political role for the nation, he questioned ?
Shri Mir sought the release of all political detainees and an atmosphere, free from any sort of unreasonable and injustifiable restrictions or administratire vendata to create conducive political situation for any credible and meaningful political activity. He announced that Congress would go ahead with its declared goal of seeking statehood with full constitutional safeguards for the protection of rights over land and government jobs to the local youth but questioned those in the ruling dispensation, now favouring these measures, after having failed to create much political space for snatching these rights from the local people as well as the basic identity as a historical state and downgrading into UTs.
