National Conference (NC) Monday called the government’s review petition on Roshni Act a U-turn aimed to save its own face and said that this had put the BharatiyaJanata Party (BJP) in deep waters.
A statement of NC issued here quoted its spokesman Imran Nabi Dar as saying that after realising that the major beneficiaries of the scheme were from BJP and RashtriyaSwayamsevakSangh (RSS) from Jammu, BJP wanted a silent backtrack on its vitriol on the Roshni Act.
He said far from harvesting anything with the propaganda on Roshni Act, BJP seemed to have found itself in deep water while putting the incumbent J&K government in a spot over filing the review petition in the High Court seeking key changes in the act.
“The cause of the abrupt change of opinion of the government at the spur of the moment is due to the presence of BJP leaders and its associates in the list of beneficiaries. The move, it goes without saying, is being carried by ruling BJP to prevent itself from self-infliction as it is apparently affecting the big-fishes within BJP and RSS’s rank and file,” Dar said in the statement. “Abandoning the idea by hiding behind the fig leaf of ensuring that poor are not at the receiving end due to the scrapping of the act seems to be the only way for BJP to save itself from embarrassment both locally, nationally as well as globally. The entire scheme of so-called ‘surgical strike’ was primarily to disenfranchise a particular community but the statistics which have surfaced have sent the BJP and RSS into a tizzy. Tensed up by the imminent drubbing in the ongoing elections in Jammu region, the BJP has chosen to duck out from the situation to evade questions in the face of such a radical change of mind.”