National Conference Provincial President Devender Singh Rana Thursday reminded the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders about safeguards to lands and jobs in Himachal Pradesh, saying that when campaigning for the ongoing District Development Council (DDC) polls in Jammu they conveniently hide these facts to justify denial of rights to permanent residents here.
“This is typical BJP hypocrisy to mislead and hoodwink public opinion for furthering their petty political agenda,” a statement of NC issued here quote Rana while addressing a series of election meetings in support of NC candidates from Nagrota and Dansal.
He advised the BJP not to test the sagacity of politically-agile people of Jammu who had understood their game plan of trampling the identity of the people of the largest Dogra state, which they have dwarfed by bifurcating it into two union territories.
“The shell-shocked people of Jammu are feeling disempowered and marginalized and the damage caused to their psyche and pride is beyond repair,” he said. “The recent measures are going to hit Jammu the most.”
Rana asked the BJP leaders to convince the people of Jammu about their ill-advised decisions like domicile keeping in view checks and balances available in Himachal Pradesh and several other states.
“If safeguarding the rights of the people in Himachal is sacrosanct, how come these are of no consequence in Jammu? This is sheer hypocrisy which exposes the intent of the BJP, which has bedecked itself the mantle of messiah of Jammu,” he said. “The harm caused to the legitimate interests of Jammu is unparalleled and doing so under the garb of hyper nationalism is an insult to the patriotism of Jammuties, who are suffering the most due to unpopular political decisions.”
Rana assailed the BJP for making tall promises, knowing well these were not to be kept.
“The track record of the party in the past nearly six years has been quite dismal as Jammu stands pushed to the wall with development coming to a grinding halt and economic activities being at the lowest ebb,” he said.
Rana said the anger among the people of Jammu over BJPs ill-advised decisions and wrong policies was soaring.
“This will surely manifest in the biggest defeat of its candidates in the ongoing elections,” he said and exuded confidence that the NC candidates were destined to win by huge margins with unflinching support of the people, who had made a choice to punish those who had bartered the interests of Jammu for loaves of power.