The presence of several government employees, including two to three Intelligence Bureau personnel, at Baisaran meadow in Kashmir’s Pahalgam may be a coincidence, but they had one thing in common: the government’s revised policy of encouraging them to travel to the Union Territory on vacation. The Centre’s tweaked Leave Travel Concession (LTC) norms encourage government employees to go on vacation to J&K and allow even a lower-grade official to avail of air travel facilities. Among those killed include IB officer Manish Ranjan, Navy lieutenant Vinay Narwal, young Air Force Staff Corporal Tage Hailyang and an SBI employee Shaileshbhai Kalathiya, besides two more unidentified intelligence personnel. Incidentally, the government, in its list of those killed, marked Manish as ‘Excise Inspector’, but earlier at the incident spot, in the first-person account given by his family members, he was identified as an IB official. IB sources said, other than Manish, two more agency officials were vacationing in J&K and may have been hurt. “In no way we can officially identify our officials dead or injured,” a source said. Manish was also on an LTC trip with his family when the attack unfolded.One nation, one poll: Netas’ bluesAs the BJP pushes a nationwide campaign to build support for the ‘One Nation, One Election’ initiative, many political leaders, including some from the BJP, face an existential dilemma. They argue that this reform could jeopardise the political futures of many aspirants across parties. Typically, candidates who don’t secure a Lok Sabha ticket turn to Assembly or municipal elections as alternative routes. However, with synchronised elections, this fallback option would disappear for the next five years. As one BJP leader put it, “Without staggered elections, leaders risk losing relevance over time, and new contenders could emerge. The competition for tickets will become fiercer than ever.”
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