Excelsior Correspondent
Jammu, Sept 18 : People’s Conference Chairman, Sajad Lone has said that there is an element of fear and persecution in the rural areas and the economic persecution seem to be the new tool that is replacing the era of human rights abuses of the past.
The People’s Conference chairman was addressing a group of political workers belonging to village Rohama of Rafiabad constituency today. While interacting with them Mr Lone hoped that the party would be able to live up to their expectations.
After listening the people of Rohama Mr. Sajad lone said that there is a serious crisis of democracy on the ground. People are rewarded or punished for their voting preferences and all development funds and poverty alleviation schemes have been linked to who voted for whom. He said this has rendered merit irrelevant in pursuit of their economic goals. In the boycott era massive powers were shifted in favour of the MLA.
Mr Lone said that there is interference in every sphere of economic activity and affiliations to a rival party invite economic persecution by guaranteed isolation from Government funded development projects. If economic persecution is not enough Transfers are used by the ruling party as another tool to get even for voting for the wrong person. He said that Jammu and Kashmir must be the only State which has the dubious distinction of converting the local CDF funds of the MLA into a political bribe by doling it out as cash on the lines of the IAY scheme.
Mr Lone said that the bureaucracy in an Act of tame surrender has been reduced to petty and helpless figureheads. In the context of conflict and strife of the last 20 years one would have imagined that inclusive economic participation of all Kashmiris irrespective of their ideological beliefs would have been the political and economic imperative. Yet the traditional parties with a history of deceit—- who were absent and stationed outside Kashmir during the trying times of the turmoil —seem keen to enervate the Kashmiri economically, unmindful of the ordeals that they have undergone in the last two decades.
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