Avtar Bhat
JAMMU, Jan 25: BJP national general secretary and Incharge J&K, Ram Madhav who was on a two days visit to the State, called on Governor, N N Vohra, Deputy Chief Minister, Dr Nirmal Singh, senior RSS and Party leaders and discussed host of issues including prevailing situation in the State as well as on borders with them.
Sources said that Madhav, who called on Vohra at Raj Bhawan today, discussed issues related to the restoration of normalcy and accelerating pace of growth and development in the State.
Party sources said Madhav held separate close door one to one meetings with Deputy Chief Minister, Dr Nirmal Singh, RSS Prant Pracharak, Ramesh Puppa, BJP State president, Sat Sharma, Party general secretary (Org), Ashok Kaul and another party general secretary, Dr Narinder Singh and besides discussing the organizational issues, held detailed deliberations on the situation on International Border (IB) and Line of Control (LoC) created due to unprovoked shelling from across the border and steps taken by the Government for restoration of peace in the Valley with them.
He took a complete feed back from the State leadership to report before the party High Command in Delhi, sources added.
Sources said the rotational change in the reserved constituencies for which the BJP Working Committee had already passed a resolution also figured in the meeting between BJP leaders and Madhav. The party leaders stressed that the same be taken up with the Government vigorously so that the reserved Assembly constituencies in the State which have not been rotated during last four consecutive elections should be rotated in the next Assembly poll in 2020, sources added.
Sources said Madhav, expressed his displeasure over the style of functioning in the State unit of the Party and the growing bickerings among the partymen as well as lack of coordination between Ministers and party leadership.
The Party High Command has taken serious exception to the reports that State leadership was maintaining a distance from the Government and was not backing its decisions and actions in public to the extent it should do with the result the opposition parties are taking an edge in criticizing the Government in public foras, sources, said, adding Madhav has apprised the party leaders of the High Command’s displeasure in this regard. He asked them that being a part and parcel of the Government, BJP is duty bound to support its decisions as well as policy programmes.
Sources said, while citing the example Madhav said the State leadership should take a cue from the national president, Amit Shah who is defending every decision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Government in public.
Sources said that the BJP leadership also discussed the share in Council of Ministry as per Agenda of Alliance (AoA) between two coalition partners and elevation of its one Minister of State to the Cabinet rank after the induction of Tassaduq Mufti in Cabinet by PDP.
As per the AoA, PDP will have 11 Cabinet Ministers including CM while BJP will have eight Cabinet Ministers. Besides, both the parties will have three Ministers of State each taking total strength of Council of Ministers to 25. However, PDP after induction of Tassaduq in Cabinet early this month has increased its tally of Cabinet Ministers to 12 while it decreased one MoS by seeking the resignation of Farooq Andrabi -a relative of the Chief Minister.
The BJP, according to sources, is now pressing hard for the elevation of one of its MoS to the Cabinet rank and this issue also figured during meeting with Madhav who will take it up with coalition partner.
Sources said that extending the benefits which are given to the people on Line of Control (LoC) to people living on International Border (IB) in the State also figured in the meeting of BJP leaders with Madhav. The State leadership informed him that the people on IB faced same problems due to shelling from across as those living on LoC hence they be also provided the same facilities including reservation in jobs and professional colleges, which the people of LoC are given.
The appointment of senior BJP leader, Virenderjit Singh as the Vice Chairman of the Corporation was also discussed by the Party leadership with Madhav, sources said, adding the BJP national general secretary has assured the party leadership that orders in this regard will be issued by next week.
Singh, whose appointment order as VC of Police Housing Corporation in March last year was revoked by the Government on flimsy grounds with the remarks that there is no such post in the Police Housing Corporation was later assured to be appointed as VC of any other Corporation, sources said.
However after the election of BJP MLC, Vikram Randhawa, the PDP took a rigid stand and it did not show any interest in issuing the appointment order of Singh as VC of any Corporation though it appointed five more people from its own party as VCs of different Corporations since then, sources said, adding 13 Corporations are headed by PDP leaders as VCs while BJP is heading eight Corporations only.
The sources said with the intervention of Madhav the issue will be sorted out soon and orders in this regard were likely to be issued by next week.
The issue of Corporate fund also came up for discussions in the meeting as some office bearers of the party have reservations about the same, sources said .
Sources said as Madhav’s tour was kept a secret and without some top office bearers other BJP leaders were not in know of it. Scores of State BJP leaders rushed to Party Headquarters at Trikuta Nagar in the morning to meet him after they came to know of it through news paper reports and waited for the entire day there to seek an audience with him. However, to their dismay, Madhav left for Union Capital in the afternoon without meeting any one.
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