Expressing concern over the alarming trend of intolerance, National Conference on Monday urged Governor N N Vohra for playing his crucial role and using his moral authority to impress upon the divisive politicians to shun the politics of hate and work towards building a harmonious society based on love, compassion and brotherhood. “We deplore the attempts being made to divide the three distinct regions of the state on the basis of religion”, a 16-member delegation of Jammu and Kashmir National Conference Jammu Province led by Provincial President Devender Rana said in a memorandum, presented to Governor N N Vohra at Raj Bhavan this morning.The other members of the delegation included former ministers Surjeet Singh Slathia, Ajay Kumar Sadhotra, Mushtaq Ahmed Bukhari, Ram Pal, MLA Kamal Arora, former legislators Kashmira Singh and Sheikh Bashir Ahmed besides Jugal Mahajan, Ch Haroon, Gurdeep Singh Sasan, Anil Dhar, Vijay Lochan, Abdul Gani Teli, Israr Khan and Dharamveer Singh Jamwal.
The delegation told the Governor that divisive elements were out with their sinister design to fragment the society into bits and pieces for furthering the political agenda of a particular political thought. “More worrisome fact is that divisiveness is being promoted covertly by those under the oath of defending the unity of the state. Wedge between people on religious basis is fraught with the danger of dividing the state, which has been agenda of those enjoying center-stage in the political horizon currently”, they added.The delegation also assailed the brazen attempts of the ruling BJP in propagating Union Territory status for Leh, which they described an anti thesis to the glorious ethos of Jammu and Kashmir, and said that in the recently concluded elections, the BJP exploited the UT status to hilt with some leaders holding constitutional positions whipping up passions over it.
The memorandum elaborately dwelt upon the performance deficit of the PDP-BJP Government especially on developmental front, stating that the process set in motion by the Government led by Omar Abdullah has got retarded due to lack of direction, comprehension and vision of the present dispensation. The administrative apparatus is in a state of inertia that has impacted the governance at ground-zero adversely, it added.“We are dismayed over the financial package announced by the Honourable Prime Minister during his visits to the State. The package is just a jugglery of figures with nothing concrete percolating down to the targeted segments of the society.The package has also neglected the growing unemployment, the pitiable position of flood sufferers and those whose properties were damaged due to rains, border migrants and even displaced people from various areas”, the delegation said.The delegation referred to the much hyped central package, unfolded by the Prime Minister in Srinagar and described it as just an “eyewash and jugglery of words”. “We fail to understand how the number of houses damaged during September 2014 floods has been slashed down from 2.61 lakh to 67,611. Similarly, the number of affected families has also been downsized.
Therefore, if the benefit of compensation reaches only to the revised number of beneficiaries, the rest of the sufferers will feel deprived and denied. We strongly plead for reaching out to the entire flood and rain hit victims. The Government of India never discussed the State Government’s proposal, which focused on covering sufferers and not to compensate the government, with anybody from the State but the Chief Minister and the Finance Minister and the actual stakeholders were never taken into confidence and that is the reason why the package has been loaded with already ongoing schemes in road, tourism and other sectors to make it look bulky”, they added.On rehabilitation of PoK refugees in the Prime Minister’s package, the memorandum says that they have got just a meager sum of Rs 2000 crore, which is far lesser than what the National Conference had been pleading for.“Similarly, the chronic problems of the border dwellers need to be addressed on immediate basis.” (KNS)