Excelsior Correspondent
RAJOURI, Oct 20: Several leaders and social activists from the Pahari speaking community representing different political parties and social organizations today expressed their concern over the recently constituted Pahari Development Advisory Board of which BJP’s senior leader, Kuldip Raj Gupta is vice Chairman.
Describing the recent nominations in the Pahari Board as politically motivated gathering of in-experienced persons, the majority of whom had never been the part of struggle for the rights of the community.
The speakers criticized the present Coalition Govt for attempting to dilute the efforts of the community deliberately to disintegrate the community. They alleged that the Board had not remained the representative of the community and had become a political instrument of the political parties in Government.
They said that the nominations should have been from the Senior leaders, writers, intellectuals and experienced representatives of the community, particularly at the present juncture when the community was united to get the ST status and it struggled for long.
The leaders alleged that while framing the board , balance between the Pahari speaking areas and ethnic units was not kept in consideration. Moreover, the people from non-Pahari speaking area had been nominated in the Board. The speakers demanded that the board be reconstituted giving representation to all areas, ethnic groups, intellectuals and experienced Pahari leaders to make it a balanced institution.
Those who addressed the conference included Lovely Gupta, Subash Sharma, Iqbal Shawl, Haji Mumtaz, Nirmal Singh Chandan, Syed Gulzar Jafri, Imran Khan and Sajjad Tariq.
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