BJP monopolises all political activities in J&K: Harshdev

NPP leader Harshdev Singh addressing press conference in Jammu on Thursday.
NPP leader Harshdev Singh addressing press conference in Jammu on Thursday.

‘BDC elections sham exercise’

Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Oct 10: Dubbing the ensuing BDC elections in J&K following its down gradation to UT as ‘sham exercise’, NPP chairman and former minister Harshdev Singh accused BJP of monopolizing all political activity in J&K to impose its political hegemony.
“Announcement of polls while keeping the nationalist opposition leaders under detention itself showcased that BJP not only held the democracy hostage for its political expediencies but turned frenzied in the quest of grabbing all BDC seats by hook or by crook,” said Harshdev while addressing a press conference in Jammu today.

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Singh regretted that the election authorities had made contemptuous mockery of the electoral process by issuing notification of BDC elections on October 1st and setting Oct 9 as last date for filing nominations. Such a short span not only posed inconvenience for the political parties to issue authority letters/mandates to their candidates living in far flung and remote areas but the four holidays in between caused grave hindrance to the Panchs and Sarpanchs of opposition parties in procuring necessary documents required for filing the nomination papers.
“While the BJP did its home work by unfair means in the last two months of undeclared emergency, other parties were forced to complete all cumbersome formalities in just 5 days. Seemingly, the Saffron party after assuming power at the Centre has been manoeuvring all the democratic institutions including the ECI at its whims and fancies”, Harshdev rued.
He maintained that in the wake of various mainstream political parties including Congress, NC and PDP announcing to boycott the said polls, the BJP was deliriously feeling over the moon with no idea that it would be only Panthers which could shatter its fascist intentions. He, however, regretted that despite best efforts, the NPP could manage to reach only around 23 Blocks out of 310 Blocks in view of paucity of time and detention of its party leadership for 58 days.
Taking a further dig at BJP, Harshdev asserted that as per the prevalent practice and precedents, the opposition parties needed to be consulted and taken into confidence while taking any decision with regard to any elections. Not only the said precedent was disregarded but the Government chose to go ahead with the said polls amidst politics of coercion, intimidation, detentions and persecutions of the nationalist opposition leaders.

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