The partial political freedom to few and curbs on political activities over others is obviously an attempt of the incumbent central government to keep the top regional mainstream parties on a collapsing mode in Jammu & Kashmir. Though non-BJP mainstream parties had conveyed a message of unity by resolving to fight for restoration of statehood and special status under Gupkar declaration immediately after the release of their frontline leaders from several months of detention but Prime Minister Narendra Modi has in his Independence day address from the historical red fort dropped hints that his government is no haste to restore statehood to Jammu & Kashmir even a year after downgrading it to two union territories. Significantly Prime Minister Modi in his statement categorically asked to wait for the assembly election till the completion of a delimitation exercise for which the Government has already constituted a panel declared unacceptable by Kashmir’s almost all the regional mainstream parties. Before announcing conduct of delimitation exercise and assembly elections the Prime Minister in a surprise decision appointed his trusted political colleague Manoj Sinha as Lt Governor of Jammu & Kashmir. So a message went out that people of Jammu & Kashmir will have to wait for a very long time for the return of popular rule and the message from Delhi to keep the mainstream parties on a collapsing mode till the conduct of a controversial delimitation process is very loud and clear. Amid no possibility of an early hearing on a bunch of pleas filed to challenge withdrawal of special status and statehood in August last year by National Conference, Peoples Conference, Kashmir High Court Bar Association (KHBA) and few others the regional mainstream parties don’t dare to launch any public reach out campaign against the central government’s provocative measures in Kashmir valley or Jammu division.
While the Government has cut out it’s job for implementing it’s proposed plans in Jammu & Kashmir, the regional mainstream parties in Jammu & Kashmir are yet to come out of a traumatic political phase which has put their political activities on a suspension since August 5 last year in both Kashmir valley and as well as Jammu division.
Already the Government has implemented a controversial domicile law for the facilitation of the process of delimitation process and obviously the partial freedom to leaders of regional mainstream political parties are obviously planned to thwart any political campaigning against the proposed delimitation process and slew of other measures including the grant of official language status to Hindi and Dogri announced by the central government recently. The implementation of controversial measures like domicile law and delimitation process is obviously part of a broader political agenda which the central government plans to implement in Jammu & Kashmir. While the Government has cut out it’s job for implementing it’s proposed plans in Jammu & Kashmir, the regional mainstream parties in Jammu & Kashmir are yet to come out of a traumatic political phase which has put their political activities on a suspension since August 5 last year in both Kashmir valley and as well as Jammu division.
