Fearing mass migration from border areas and alteration of electoral equations, BJP has shelved the proposal to resettle elsewhere the residents living closer to the borders, reliable sources told Greater Kashmir. The residents facing dangers will now be housed in “border bhawans”, the one-room apartments but will not be allowed to reside there permanently.
The afterthought comes in the wake of approaching parliamentary poll due next year. The proposal envisaged to a lot alternative lands to the border residents so that they are removed from within the line of fire. It was the same promise that helped BJP sweep in 2014 LokSabha elections.
The sources said initially party worked on the proposal for allotting 5 marla plot each to every border area family and a piece of land measuring 80 Kanal was also identified near Hiranagar, but then party feared that if people got land, they might not return back to villages, which might be “unfavorable for security of nation.”
“There is no guarantee that people after getting land at safer place would return to their native places closer to the border and carry their routine agriculture activities”, a senior BJP leader said on anonymity.
Some BJP leaders argue that the move was to uphold the security of the country. “The abandoned villages are also a huge security risk, and for us (BJP) nation’s security comes first,” a BJP leader said.
Sources added instead of plots, the BJP leadership mulling to provide exclusive one bedroom flats for each border dweller besides and Border Bhawanas (community halls) to accommodate the people in case of emergency.
Recently, minister of state in the prime minister’s office, DrJitendra Singh, on his visit to relief camp in Hiranagar also admitted that his party has raised with the central government the demand for plots at safer places.
Singh claimed that the change in the plan was considered only after the security forces requested for a review as it ran the risk of borders getting deserted.