Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Aug 21: Senior BJP leader and chairman of the Party’s Campaign Committee for Assembly elections 2014, Dr Nirmal Singh today cautioned the people against gimmicks of some political groups who are responsible for the miseries of inhabitants of Jammu region and now uttering to solve such miseries.
In a statement issued here today, Dr. Nirmal Singh said that the coming elections are going to change history of Jammu and Kashmir because nationalist people of the State have decided to give BJP a chance to form its own government.
Pointing towards statements of some Jammu based Congress and National Conference leaders, Dr Singh said that for the last six years both the parties have meted out step motherly treatment to Jammu region and now some leaders of NC and Congress have started speaking in favour of Jammu.
BJP spokesperson Arun Kumar Gupta has accused the Congress of misleading the people of Jammu in this regard. In a statement issued here, today Mr Gupta said it is indeed interesting that the idea of a Hindu as a possible Chief Minister of the State has cropped up in the run –up to the State Legislative Assembly elections. However it is extremely odd and contradictory that the idea has been brought out in the public domain by someone affiliated to the Congress.
He said that there is no Constitutional bar on the member of any community, including Hindu, from becoming the CM of the State though having Muslim majority. In a secular India there have been examples in the past whereby the Congress made minority leaders like Abdul Rehman Antulay as Chief Minister of Maharashtra and Abdul Gafoor as Chief Minister of Bihar. So if indeed a Hindu becomes the Chief Minister of J&K, it should not raise any eyebrows, he added.
Sharply reacting to the Hindu Chief Minister proposal appearing in a section of the press today, the president Jammu and Kashmir Sikh United Front (SUF) and former Chairman J&K State Gurudwara Board, S Sudarshan Singh Wazir has said that Congress Minister’s statement is an antithesis to the Constitution of India and a potential cause of insecurity among the minority communities. He said had the Minister broadened his vision he could have looked beyond the Hindu-Muslim prism to initiate a debate and inspire confidence among other minorities like Sikhs, Buddhists and Christians.
He said while a bonafide citizen of the State has right to run for the office of Chief Minister but to call for a political campaign in that direction on the basis of religion amounts not only to a ridiculous slur on the Constitution of India but also an open challenge to the political and social survival of minority communities.
The members of All J&K Movement for Peace and Justice, S Deep Singh, Kuldeep Kumar Rao, Dr G S Charak and Romesh Lal Bhagat have strongly objected the remarks of one of the Congress ministers who has raised the point at the time of election that the next Chief Minister should be a Hindu which they had forgotten for so many years. They also criticized the Jammu based opposition parties of making a drama on the name of discrimination with Jammu region on all fronts during election time only and accused the Congress of its failure in fulfilling its promise on delimitation made in 2008 elections.
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