SRINAGAR: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s leadership in Jammu and Kashmir is in an upbeat mood and its workers are also overjoyed after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rally in Srinagar’s Bakshi Stadium witnessed a huge participation of people on Thursday. However, the opposition parties insist that most of them were forced to attend the rally and that the J&K administration pulled out all stops to increase the headcount including compelling its employees to show up at Bakshi Stadium. They also say that the Prime Minister disappointed the people of J&K by not touching the issues of their concern during his speech. “More than two lakh people attended the Prime Minister’s rally. Their enthusiasm and the love they showered on him dekhte hi banta tha (was to be seen than it could be described in words). What they (the opposition) are saying is their frustration,” said Ravinder Raina, the president of the J & K unit of the BJP. Another senior party leader Devender Singh Rana said that the huge participation of the people in the Prime Minister’s ‘Viksit Bharat, Viksit J&K’ programme at the Bakshi Stadium was reflective of their faith in his leadership. He said, “The Prime Minister’s visit to the Valley was a historic milestone in the region’s journey towards prosperity and peace. What he said underscores the government’s unwavering commitment to the development and welfare of the people of J&K”. The BJP believes that the Prime Minister’s visit has given a boost to the morale of party’s rank and file and that it will certainly help it in the upcoming Lok Sabha and J&K assembly elections. “We will contest all the five Lok Sabha seats and win them as well. Also, we are going to form the next government on our own in J&K. Let the Election Commission of India announce the dates”, said Mr. Raina. Mr. Modi himself was quite enthralled at seeing Kashmiris turning up in “such huge numbers to listen to me”. He promised them that their love and veneration will be reciprocated in kind and their dreams “suppressed and ignored for decades” translated into reality by his government. He said, “I have been coming here for the last many decades and my mission has been to win the hearts of Kashmiri people. Today, after seeing you here in such large numbers and about one lakh more watching and hearing me virtually from different centres set up across Jammu and Kashmir I can say that I have succeeded in winning the Kashmiri hearts.” But former chief minister and People’s Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti said that everything spoken by the Prime Minister at the rally was “to showcase the so-called benefits of illegal abrogation of Article 370 akin to putting salt to their wounds”. She has alleged that the Prime Minister’s visit was only meant to address and drum up support amongst BJPs core constituency in the rest of India for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. National Conference general secretary Ali Muhammad Sagar said the Prime Minister’s visit and speech have left many disappointed. “It’s the same worn-out rhetoric that Jammu and Kashmir has been hearing for the past five years, yet there’s still a lack of confidence (in the BJP government) in holding (assembly) elections in J&K,” he said. He added, “People were eagerly awaiting announcements regarding statehood, a promise of a democratically elected government by September, job packages for the unemployed, relief from the power crisis, and major development projects. Unfortunately, none of these expectations were met. Instead, they were presented with recycled projects”. Mr. Sagar alleged that young entrepreneurs, “who have succeeded through their own efforts”, were exploited in the name of Viksit Bharat.” Congress leader Ravinder Sharma said that the people had pinned hope on the Prime Minister’s “touching the issues of their concern including the restoration of democracy” in the erstwhile state of J&K. “He didn’t make even a passing reference on these and instead repeated his old rhetoric of targeting the Opposition, forgetting that his BJP had shared power with them in the past”, he said. Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami, the CPIM’s key face in J&K, said that the Prime Minister had at a meeting with the political leadership of the erstwhile state a couple of years ago promised to remove ‘Dil ki doori and Dilli se doori’, but the government’s approach “is poised to subvert the democratic and legitimate rights of its people further.”
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