Mahesh Chander Sudan
We, the people of India, are undergoing the process of electing our representatives for Union Parliament. The phase wise conduct of general election is culminating in the third week of May 19 which shall enable formation of next Government as scheduled. Participation of various political parties in the general election makes it more interesting for voters to analyze and pick up right option to cast their mandate. Therefore, the options available for voters may differ from place to place. As far as the people of Jammu and Kashmir are concerned, some political parties decided region wise participation due to political alignments and this skewed the range of option for voters leaving limited choice for them. To be more specific the valley centric political parties, NC and PDP did not field their candidates in Jammu province for reasons well known to them. We are therefore left with limited option of voting either for BJP repeat candidates or Congress first timers besides few others from local political outfits and independents. Let the voters decide to go either with repeaters based on their mass appeal and public visibility or try first timers who have long political career to convince voters to exercise mandate in their favor. It is felt that the result of parliament election is going to affect the forth coming Assembly elections as it shall either reaffirm the faith of voters in BJP or indicate towards a new trend emerging out of present political turmoil. Mandate exercised earlier in favor of BJP both in local and general elections remained underutilized and resulted in premature fall of coalition Government of PDP and BJP raising public sentiments against the dispensation.
The premature fall of coalition Government added fuel to fire and the poor voters were once again made to face defeat despite united mandate given to BJP and PDP by Jammu and Kashmir region respectively. This trend was witnessed first time in history against the homogenous nature of the people of the State. The voters across the three regions of the state felt the effect of this political undercurrent that was orchestrated by central leadership to challenge monopolistic attitude of valley centric main stream political parties and this compelled PDP to move away from its ideological path and accept formation of government with support from BJP rather than National Conference. This union was a marriage of compulsion rather than compromises. The agenda of alliance between them remained only on paper and could not work in the larger interest of the people. Such a delicate political alliance of two ideologies diagonally opposite to each other provided fertile soil for ongoing terrorism in the valley. We however fail to understand the compulsion of central dispensation in allowing the blatant release of stone palters that raised the morale of active militants in the valley and caused heavy loss to security forces.
The impending state elections would therefore be taken more seriously by the people of Jammu and Kashmir. It calls for a sincere introspection by both voters and political entities of the state as real major issues like unemployment, lack of qualitative education and health services, corruption in bureaucracy , price rise of day to day items besides unusually high cost of petrol, diesel and domestic LPG and pollution of air and water had taken back seat.
We were promised sky-high achievements through electoral manifestoes during 2014 and an innocent acceptance guided voters of Jammu province and across Valley to exercise franchise unprecedentedly in favor of BJP and PDP. The situation therefore indicates a new trend emerging in the form of new political options being opened to voters either by recently formed state level political parties like DSS of Lal Singh, PC by Sajad Lone, JKPM by Shah Faesal and AAP of Kejriwal. More so selective fielding of candidate by NC and PDP in Parliamentary election affected their cadres, and this vacuum would definitely help new entrants in forming mass appeal in their favor and it shall prove unhealthy for both main stream parties of Jammu and Kashmir.
In the given situation, it is really a serious business for voters to exercise their mandate judiciously in the larger interest of the state and respond to the call of the constitution so that we do not fall prey to political gimmicks once again like 2014. Jai Hind, Jai Bharat.
(The author is WgCdr (Retd) Sainik Colony Jammu)
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