‘Will form strong, stable government in J&K on our own’
‘BJP, PDP failed border dwellers’
Jammu: Senior National Conference leaders on Wednesday exuded confidence about forming a stable, strong and people friendly government in Jammu and Kashmir on its own.
The party has said that the biggest challenge would be to address to the political aspirations of the people of all the three regions and reviving developmental activities and generating jobs for youth.
“National Conference is the only party having its vibrant presence in every nook and corner of all the regions of the state”, General Secretary Ali Mohammed Sagar said while addressing workers of Nowshera and Kalakote assembly constituencies at Sunderbani.
Sagar was speaking during first leg of the two-day tour of Rajouri and Poonch districts Wednesday afternoon.
Referring to the recent win of National Conference on all the three parliamentary seats it contested, he said that the party will emerge “hugely victorious in the assembly elections”.
He recalled the performance of the party in 1996 assembly elections when National Conference bagged 57 seats in the state, 17 in the Jammu region.
“It is because of the deep rooted presence and vibrant cadre base of the party across the state”, he added.
Sagar said that National Conference had a “chequred history of public service, as enshrined in Naya Kashmir Charter”.
He said the party “will give every sacrifice for upholding the dignity and identity of the people of the state”. He also stressed the need for preserving the idea of India by promoting and strengthening its inclusive ethos.
National Conference, he said, “has shown the way during most testing times of history by upholding the spirit of communal harmony, which continues to remain its political philosophy”.
“While taking an overview of the political scene, who else but the towering leadership of the National Conference can lead the state”, Sagar said.
Sagar urged the Governor’s administration for stepping up development and strengthening of grievance redressal mechanism, as people were “suffering on account of various services”.
He also sought special attention towards employment generation, keeping in view disenchantment among the educated unemployed youth.
Speaking on the occasion, Provincial President Devender Singh Rana said that National Conference was “a force to reckon with, which is all set to give the state a strong and vibrant government on its own”.
“We are going to improve our 1996 tally, given the overwhelming support of the people”, Rana said.
He said that the first and foremost task would be to assuage the regional and sub-regional aspirations and putting the state back on the rails of development and progress.
Rana accused the previous PDP-BJP dispensation of derailing the developmental tempo “initiated and sustained by successive National Conference dispensations”.
“The thread left in 2014 is to be picked again to give momentum to development, job creation and instilling sense of security among the people,” he said.
Rana blamed the PDP and the BJP for failing the people of the state, especially those living in the border, remote and backward areas.
He alleged the “insensitive dispensation, which betrayed the people all over, virtually left the border dwellers in lurch”.
“We will have to undo the wrongs committed by the BJP and the PDP”, Rana said while assuring the border dwellers that National Conference was always with them, especially in the times of distress.
Sagar and Rana exhorted the cadre to further intensify their public outreach campaign, identify their problems for seeking redressal at appropriate levels besides gearing up for the upcoming assembly polls.
In his address, former MLA Kalakote Thakur Rachpal Singh listed the problems being faced by the border dwellers while assailing the “insensitivity of the BJP and the PDP in adding to these during their misrule”.
Singh said that the border people were “feeling cheated by the previous dispensation, be it the development or jobs to educated youth”.
He said this sense of despair needed to be reversed adding that this can be done only by the National Conference government.
State Secretary Rattan Lal Gupta also addressed the workers.
KV News
