J K News Today Commentary
Those raking up the issue of Divisional status for the Chenab Valley, the name some of the vested interests have given to erstwhile Doda district, are doing out of sheer frustration after they lost the power . This is one of their ploys to make an issue with their eyes set on the coming Assembly elections .
This is part of their age-old tradition of exploiting the people on the communal and sub regional lines at the time of elections . It is their political depression that is making them to play with fire in the sensitive parts of the State . They are playing politics of exploitation to divide the innocent people of the area for their short-term political gains.
Their argument of recognition of the developmental needs and devolution of powers is complete double-speak.
First, those who are raking up this issue , did not utter even a single word about all this as and when they were in power. PDP President Mehbooba Mufti who raised a pitch about this after she is out of power . She is having no record to show that she mentioned anything of this nature as long as she was Chief Minister for well over two years.
What has changed since her government fell, she has no answers, except that she is looking for some kind moorings while her party is suffering from increasing dissension , while the people have started showing loss of faith in her politics that has nothing positive for anyone.
The only thing that has changed since June 19, 2018 is that Mehbooba Mufti is out of power . It is her false hope that her gimmicks and the newfound love for the “ Chenab Valley ,” would help her party during the polls.
There is a need to open the official record and the number of visits that Mehbooba Mufti or her predecessors , including her father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, Farooq Abdullah , Omar Abdullah undertook of the erstwhile Doda district . These can be counted on fingertips . Why the development was not undertaken during all those years when they were at the helm of affairs .
Former Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, who belonged to the area, did the development and the devolution of powers in the district . He created three out of one district of Doda – Kishtwar, Ramban and Doda. That time , the PDP did not appreciate the devolution of powers and the other parties also maintained a mysterious silence . Instead , PDP pulled the rug from the feet of Ghulam Nabi Azad Government under the self-triggered unrest over Amarnath land row . No party had come to his rescue to save his government.
Today after more than a decade , and earlier too, when Farooq Abdullah, and Mufti Sayeed were chief ministers and controlled the planning department did not think of developing the mountainous area .
Chenab Valley must get the development . It needs it badly. Its potential has not been tapped fully . not because that the people there were having any problems with the rest of Jammu, the real problem was that their plans and funds that were to be allocated by the Chief Ministers were not given to their area. Their water resources, in which they are rich, were exploited by the powers that be by making big deals . The Baglihar project is an example that how the water resources were utilized , the locals were neither given jobs nor the power from the project . That the State government and the project on papers signed project deals were executed by the Jammu Kashmir State Power Development Corporation .
The best course is that the people of the region should first identify that who all has exploited them over the decades since independence . They would find that their resources were usurped by those who are instigating them to fall in the separate enclaves. They must see through their design
