Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Oct 5: Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) will contest on 280 Block Development Committee (BDC) seats out of 316 seats in the State, the elections of which will be held on October 24.
This was announced by party State president, Ravinder Raina at a press conference here this evening while releasing the list of party candidates. He said the 36 seats will be left by the party for the other like minded candidates in the State.
The list was announced by the party this evening so that the candidates can fill up their forms up to October 9, the last date for filing of nomination papers. Raina was flanked by MP, Jugal Kishore Sharma and former Deputy CM, Kavinder Gupta in the press conference.
Raina said that BJP is committed to take the democracy to grass root level and strengthen the basic institutes of democracy in the State which were till date neglected by the successive State governments for their vested interests.
He extended his gratitude to Prime Minister, Narendra Modi and BJP national president and Union Home Minister, Amit Shah for fulfilling the commitment of empowering the Panchayati Raj system in Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh.
He said it is this commitment that the Government held Panchayat and civic body elections in the State last year and now it started the process of BDC elections in all three regions of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh so that the basic democratic institutions are strengthened in the State.
He said with the BDC elections in Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh the Panchayati Raj system has become powerful and now the elected representatives will get more powers to do justice with common masses in the rural areas.
Raina, while making a dig at the Congress , NC and PDP said they never bothered for strengthening the basic institutes of democracy in the State while NC was for autonomy for some dynasties and PDP’s self rule was meant for party only while the common masses of all three regions were ignored and they had no role to play.
He said all credit goes to Narendra Modi and Amit Shah for doing justice with Panchs and Sarpanchs of the three regions of erstwhile J&K State. He said holding BDC and DDC elections is a landmark decision in the history of J&K and it will translate the real democracy to grass root level and common man in all three regions will reap its fruits.
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