Urging J&K unit to gear up, message from BJP: Polls by April-May, followed by local elections

B L Santhosh presides over core committee meeting, party workers told to work for majority in first elections to be held after abrogation of Article 370

BJP leader B L Santhosh addresses a party meet in Jammu on Wednesday. (Twitter/ @BJP4JnK)

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WITH A message to party leaders that elections could be held in Jammu and Kashmir “at any time”, and most likely by April-May, the BJP core committee meeting held here Wednesday unveiled an organisational revamp including separate committees for every Lok Sabha and Assembly constituency across J&K for the first time, appointment of panna pramukh (page wise in-charges of electoral rolls), and Mann ki Baat programmes at the mohalla level to discuss issues concerning the people.

According to a senior BJP leader, the message from the meeting – presided over by BJP national general secretary (organisation) B L Santhosh – was that in the first elections to be held in J&K after the scrapping of its special status by the Modi government, “the party must get a majority on its own’’.

The BJP has never formed a government in J&K on its own, but was part of a ruling coalition with the PDP in the last government before Article 370 was abrogated.

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National general secretary Tarun Chugh, Union Minister of State, PMO, Jitendra Singh (who belongs to J&K), BJP co-incharge for J&K Ashish Sood were also present at the meeting, apart from all senior J&K leaders of the BJP and its affiliate organisations.

Dropping hints that Assembly elections in J&K are likely to be held in April-May, both Santosh and Chugh asked leaders to also gear up cadres at the grass-roots, saying local body polls might follow by end of the year.

#Jammu में हुई भारतीय जनता पार्टी की संगठनात्मक बैठक के कुछ दृश्य। #BJP pic.twitter.com/0ixdOmowM8

— Dr Jitendra Singh (@DrJitendraSingh) January 11, 2023

The core group meeting was held two days after senior BJP leaders from J&K called on Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Delhi and discussed issues concerning the UT, specifically the recent terror attack in Rajouri’s Upper Dangri village leaving seven civilians dead and the withholding of salary of Kashmiri Pandit and reserved category Dogra employees who have returned to Jammu from Kashmir in the wake of targeted killings by militants in the Valley.

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According to party leaders, Shah assured strengthening of the security and intelligence grids in both the border districts of Rajouri and Poonch. The Union Home Minister is also visiting Upper Dangri to meet the families of terror victims on Friday, after which he will hold a high-level meeting to review security across the UT. Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Chief of Army Staff, General Manoj Pande, will next visit Dangri, after January 26.

At the core meeting, Chugh flayed the criticism by J&K parties of the Centre’s decision to revive the village defence scheme, arming local civilians for self-defence in case of militant attacks. These parties should tell the people whether they are with the militants or those wanting to fight them, he said.

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While the BJP is projecting the pre-poll revamp as streamlining of the organisation, it is also an attempt to stem the resentment it is facing from its core constituency in predominantly Hindu-inhabited areas of Jammu division, especially in view of the spurt in militant activity, delay in recruitment to various vacancies and in release of salaries of daily wagers, as well as over “outsiders” taking away contracts for even the extraction of minor minerals from streams and rivers.

There is also brewing anger in Ladakh over rights to its people post-abrogation of Article 370, with a march planned in Jammu on January 15.