National Conference (NC) on Tuesday claimed that the partyis poised to form a strong, stable and responsive government in Jammu andKashmir by crossing its 1996 state legislative assembly tally of 57 seats.
“National Conference will surpass its 1996 tally of 39assembly seats in Kashmir, 15 in Jammu and three in Ladakh region,” NCProvincial President Devender Singh Rana said at a press conference atSher-e-Kashmir Bhavan in Jammu.
He slammed the BJP for what he said twisting the statisticsin its daily “rants” in the media, saying this speaks of its fear andfrustration in the wake of imminent rejection by the people.
“In their enthusiasm, the BJP leaders are forgetting thatNational Conference did not contest the Lok Sabha elections in Jammu andLadakh,” he said. “Therefore, they have no reason to celebrate over theso-called edge in some constituencies.”
He said that Jammu has suffered the most during the BJP’sover three years of “misrule” and that the fear of defeat has unnerved the BJPleadership.
Rana also said that BJP should spell out just ten initiativesfor Jammu’s growth during the party’s first and perhaps last tenure in thegovernment between 2015 and 2018.
He said the BJP will have to answer as to what happened toits much trumpeted recruitment drive for the border youth, construction ofbunkers and allotment of five marla plots to border dwellers.
“Will the BJP say how many educated unemployed youth wereprovided jobs in their tenure; why the flagship projects of AIIMS and threeMedical Colleges are still on papers; what happened to SMART City project whythe implementation of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana could not takeoff; why Artificial Lake Project andTawi River Front Project on the pattern of so-called Sabarmati Project did notmaterialize; why the party failed in regularizing the daily wagers and othersdespite a blue-print drawn by the previous Omar Abdullah led government,” Ranaquestioned.
He asked why the BJP governments at the centre and in thestate reduced the one-time settlement of Pakistan administered Kashmir refugeesto paltry Rs 5 lakh per family instead of the recommended Rs 25 lakhs perfamily by the National Conference led government.