History is witness, the regimes in power always pretended to be pro-people but in reality they proved to be more concerned towards strengthening their own political carrier than the people they are elected for.
The recent coalition breakage between the BJP and PDP in Jammu and Kashmir is an example, that politicians can do unexpected things when it comes to strong their base on poltical grounds. It is evident that despite sky level claims of good coalition governance , political parties can at any point of time become enemies to eachother by breaking their ties. That is what BJP did by ending their alliance with PDP for the largest interest of people in India in order to gain political mileage for upcoming parliament elections in the country.
After the fractured mandidate to different regional parties in previous state legislative elections in Jammu and Kashmir , It was said by PDP leadership that after much awaited time a comprehensive decision was taken to reject the offer of alliance with all regional parties and to make coalition with a big political party, Bartiya Janta Party, the political party with the power in centre, in order to bring the state on developmental track and get together the people of south and north pole ” the people of Jammu and Kashmir” to get rid of polarization in the state.
High claims were made by both the partners of government that Jammu and Kashmir would get a financial support from centre and the development would be done on all fronts of under developed sectors. The prime focus of claims, made by the then government was employment to unemployed youth, uninterrupted electricity, road connectivity, development on the grounds of geographical and demographical political issues in Jammu and Kashmir, road connectivity, economical development and upliftment of poverty. According to the claims made by PDP, to bring all the above issues on developmental tract , BJP- PDP coalition twas the good option for the governance in the state.
Even Mehbooba Mufti the Ex-Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir , after the demise of her father, made it the political point of discussion that the alliance with Bartiya Janta Party was must in order to fulfil the dreams of her father to develop Indo-Pak relations and to give a healing touch to the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
But both the political slogans of coalition , Healing Touch as well as Sab Ka Sath Sab Ka Vikas, proved hollow. The coalition, even after governing for more than three years , was not in a position to show the sign of any satisfactory development in any of the underdeveloped sectors. The unemployment is still as it was, yet there no regularisation for daily wagers working in different government departments , there is not enough development in the fields of road connectivity , power supply , efficient water supply, normalcy and all that. However you can see that those employees who were normally working as regular permanent government employees in the state were subjected to mental agony by debaring them from seventh pay commission benefits. The said employees are the Rehbar–e-Taleem Teachers working under SSA , who have been given all the benefits, even sixth pay commission benifit , like other permanent government employees, but govement tried to deprive them from their much deserved seventh pay commission benefits. So one wonders , If the government failed at all fronts to deliver the services to common people, then to what they called “Sab Ka Sath Sab Ka Vikas”.
Though the decision to end up the alliance was of Bartiya Janta Party, but political analysts say that , if BJP had not withdrawn the support, PDP had to end the alliance sooner or later to win the vote bank for next elections, as people were not happy with the three and a half years long coalition government which couldn’t come up with the expectations of the people.
But it was BJP who despite providing unsuccessful coalition governence, succeeded to make their political carrier for upcoming parliament elections by ending up the alliance with PDP. Ironically BJP being the partner of the government for more than three years claimed that PDP led government failed to provide a good governence . Obviously the claim makes no weight as the failed one is making others responsible for failure. Any how BJP made it a point before the people of India that it was with the largest interest of the people in India, which is to wage the war against the militancy, for which PDP led government failed according to the statements of BJP leadership.
However the ground reality is that the process of killing the people of Kashmir was never so high that was witnessed during the period of BJP-PDP alliance. During the Burhan episode, the number of killings touched about one and a half hundred and thousands were injured. The militancy rose up abruptly after the the said episode. From that time Kashmiris may have hardly seen any day when no Kashmiri was Killed. So the war against militancy was biggest in its nature during the coalition. No doubt the war against militancy by Indian forced proved to be counterproductive and more youth, even highly educated youth joined militancy ranks, but ironically still BJP claims that government failed to wage the war against militancy.
Moreover a high rank military officer said in a statement, ” there is not any political intervention whether to carry out any military operation against militancy or not, Indian army does it independently with their own planing”. Then how come was it possible that PDP could stop any military operation, when they had not its key with them. All these statements from “Bartiya Janta Party” the ruling political party in centre, were hollow and possessed no weight. However whatever they did, they did it to gain the political mileage in upcoming parliament elections.
(The author is a freelancer writing often for “Kashmir Horizon”. His views are personal)
