National Conference (NC) Provincial President Devender Singh Rana Friday sought a white paper from the BJP on the development undertaken and jobs provided to the educated unemployed youth of Jammu region during the past over five years.
“The people of Jammu are within their rights to have a report card from the BJP, which they cradled in power with massive 25 seats in the Legislative Assembly in 2014 on the promise of jobs, development and fulfillment of all the aspirations,” a statement of NC quoted Rana as saying.
The statement said he was addressing a series of public meetings across Nagrota and Dansal District Development Council (DDC) segments in favour of the party candidates Somnath Khajuria and Shameem Begum.
Rana said BJP could not get away from answering to the people as they feel let down, degraded, humiliated and left in lurch during the past over five years.
“The promises made were never kept and, in fact, the normal course of development was also put in the rear gear, as the self-centered agenda remained the top priority,” he said in the statement. “The insult to the injury is that the BJP is again hoodwinking the people by emotive slogans, forgetting its role on the administrative and developmental front. This is brazen and speaks of the hypocrisy that is core of the BJP.”
The NC Provincial President reminded the BJP of flaunting about 50,000 to 70,000 jobs on fast-track basis in a time-bound manner and asked as to how many of these stood filled up.
“The people know the answer but still want to hear it from the self-proclaimed champions of the Jammu cause. Instead of empowering the youth, the BJP created uncertainties by taking measures like domicile and opening the scarce jobs to non-permanent residents under the garb of domicile law,” he said. “This is a worrisome situation for all.”
Rana said that the Jammu youth had nowhere to go except the government sector in absence of organised corporate sector.
“Due to performance inertia, most of the qualified youth are at the brink of getting over-aged,” he said. “Both skilled and unskilled youth are finding themselves in the state of despondency due to the burgeoning unemployment problem.”
The NC Provisional President said except for emotive slogans, BJP had nothing to offer to Jammu.
Accusing the BJP of exploiting the Jammu sentiment for the past over seven decades, he said when time of reckoning came, they betrayed and back-stabbed the people.
“Now the people of Jammu have realised their mistake of trusting a party, which was never sincere to its words,” Rana said and asked the BJP to read the writing on the wall as the problems of the people had accumulated in the recent years.
He cautioned the BJP not to test the patience of people and be ready for the verdict to be announced by dejected Jammu people in the ongoing District Development Council polls.