Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, June 26: Governor NN Vohra, his two Advisors and top officers of administration would tomorrow meet a high-level delegation of the BJP at Raj Bhavan in Srinagar to discuss slow pace of developmental works especially the Centrally Sponsored Schemes in Jammu and Ladakh regions, which were described by BJP national president Amit Shah as one of the reasons for withdrawal of support to Mehbooba Mufti led PDP Government.
Amit Shah during his Jammu visit on June 23 had alleged that several developmental projects of Jammu and Ladakh regions, approved by the Government of India, were intentionally delayed by the PDP Government to discriminate with these two regions, which were strong political bases of the BJP.
The BJP has also called meeting of its all 25 MLAs here on June 30 to devise further political strategy in Jammu and Kashmir, which will be party’s first gathering of elected members after imposition of Governor’s rule in the State on June 19.
BJP sources told the Excelsior that a party delegation headed by Ravinder Raina, State president and comprising Kavinder Gupta, former Deputy Chief Minister, Sunil Sharma, Sat Sharma and Rajiv Jasrotia, all former Ministers would meet the Governor at 3.30 pm tomorrow in the presence of his Advisors to raise the developmental works, which have been pending for long time and will call for immediately initiating work on them.
The works identified by Amit Shah at his Parade public rally and to be taken up with the Governor by the BJP delegation included All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Government Medical Colleges at Poonch, Doda and Kathua, four-laning of Jammu-Akhnoor road followed by double-laning of Akhnoor-Poonch road via Rajouri, Chenani-Sudh Mahadev-Pul Doda National Highway, Akhnoor-Pargwal bridge, Ring Road and various other projects of similar nature, which have been approved by the Central Government either under Prime Minister’s Development Package (PMDP) or under other Centrally Sponsored Schemes for the past quite some time but the work on which was yet to be started.
Asserting that all these projects and some others were very significant, the BJP sources said, the party high command has clearly instructed the State unit leadership to get work on them started at the earliest so that progress of works is visible during Lok Sabha elections, which were due to be held in April-May next year. The party leadership was of the view that despite sanctioning several mega projects with their cost running into several hundreds of crores, the BJP was unable to get any credit for them so far due to non initiation of work on them on ground.
“We will be taking forward the agenda set for us by Amit Shah,” the BJP leaders said.
However, with Governor’s rule now in force, the BJP high command as well as State unit leadership are quite confident that all Centrally Sponsored Projects in Jammu and Kashmir will get pace and obstacles in launch of work on some of them would be overcome by the administration.
The BJP delegation, according to sources, will take up the issue with the Governor and his Advisors that work on not only the projects identified by them but all other works, approved by the Centre or the State Governments should be accelerated so that they don’t miss the deadlines.
It may be mentioned here that a number of projects being executed under the PMDP have jumped timelines, leading to massive escalation in their cost. A result of this, the PMDP, which had initially been sanctioned to the tune of Rs 80,068 crore in November 2015, has already crossed to Rs one lakh crore amid apprehensions that the cost could further escalate if the projects were not completed in time.
During his Parade public rally on June 23 on the occasion of martyrdom of Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, Amit Shah had described discrimination with Jammu and Ladakh regions as one of the reason for withdrawal of support from the PDP Government. He had also mentioned number of projects, which were delayed by the State Government in Jammu.
Sources said apart from developmental projects, the BJP delegation would also discuss prevailing situation in Jammu and Kashmir with the Governor and steps required to check the level of violence and militancy in the Kashmir valley.
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