Brig Anil Gupta, State Spokesperson of Bharatiya Janata Party
Jammu, May 17: Bharatiya Janata Party has taken serious note of tweets of NC leader Omar Abdullah and PDP leader Firdous Tak. In a statement issued by the party, it has been alleged that despite the clarification given by the JK Police that info of the killing in Bhaderwah as incident of cow vigilantes is not confirmed during investigation both the leaders have tried to rouse communal passions with an intent to stoke communal riots by referring to Cow Vigilantes and Saffron Terrorists in their respective tweets. “Having lost their political base in Jammu and Ladakh and with the cold response given by the Kashmiris in just concluded Parliamentary Elections, both the parties seem to be joining hands in order to polarize the electorate in erstwhile Doda District in order to counter the growing influence of BJP,” asserted Brig Anil Gupta, State Spokesperson of the Party.
“With an estimated population breakup of 60 percent Muslims and 40 percent Hindus, Kishtwar has bad memories of small-scale looting and vandalism against shops owned mostly by Hindu minorities in 1993, 1998, 2003 and 2008 and 2013. It always happens just before the assembly elections. The valley base politicians have chosen the same area again for communal polarisation as a ploy for vote bank politics before the ensuing assembly elections. The murders of BJP and RSS workers, though aimed at the same, did not yield results as per their expectations and machinations. Hence, they have tried to reverse the scenario and brought in the angle of ‘cow vigilantism’ and ‘saffron terror’. Imam Jamia Kishtwar, has also rightly observed that some “cowards” are trying to create a wedge between the people on communal lines thus attacking the prevailing peace and brotherhood in the region,” stated Brig Gupta.
Both NC and PDP need to realize that their policy of “communal politics” has been exposed very badly. The people of Jammu and Ladakh have already rejected their style of divisive politics by showing them the mirror and resulting in the inability of both the parties to field their candidates in the recently concluded elections. “The idea of ‘grand alliance’ and ‘friendly matches’ were mere alibis to keep their cadres silent but the open revolt by the cadre has given a rude shock to the leadership of both the parties. Hence, as a last ditch attempt, they are resorting to their old trick of engineered and orchestrated acts of violence,” accused Brig Gupta.
Elaborating further Brig Gupta said that the contemporary imperative of coalitions to obtain a majority in the Assembly because none of the regional parties can obtain a majority on their own, the regional parties compete with each other to divide voters into communal lines. Having failed to provide good governance and address the socio-economic issues facing the people of the region the Valley-centric political parties are planning a violent dustup along Hindu versus Muslim lines, in which these parties are seen to be sympathetic to Muslims. This would help consolidate a crucial vote-bank and keep the BJP at bay for seats in the Assembly.