Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Apr 14: Making a strong case for setting of All India Institutes of Medical Sciences in all the three regions of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh, Provincial President Devender Singh Rana today asked the Centre to appreciate the needs, sensitivities and uniqueness of Jammu and Kashmir.
“While the decision about AIIMS in Srinagar is laudable, similar facilities are needed to be created in the other two divisions of the State”, Rana said while welcoming the J&K President of Rashtriya Krantikari Samajwadi Party Tanveer Hussain Babzada along with his unit into National Conference at a specially held function at Sher-e-Kashmir Bhavan here this afternoon.
Mr Rana lambasted the attempts being made to politicize this issue and said National Conference had shown a way in a similarly placed situation when the Central Universities were announced across the country. As a result of concerted efforts and single-mindedness of the party enabled achieving the objective of two such varsities, one at Jammu and one in Srinagar, he said, adding that a similar approach should be made to get additional AIIMS for the State.
Elaborating his point, Mr Rana said while Kashmir needs such a facility because of its topography and landlockedness for better part of the winter, it has also to cater the needs of far flung areas like Karnah, Machil, Gurez and Uri.
Similarly, he said Jammu, being the winter capital, is thronged by over ten million pilgrims annually apart from a sizable population from Kashmir during Darbar Move months. Also, the region comprises far off places like Kishtwar, Doda, Billawar, Poonch and Rajouri which too remain dependent at the centralized medicare facility at Jammu.
On Ladakh, the Provincial President said, the area remains totally cut off with rest of the world for more than six months and has lately emerged most favourite destination of the foreign tourists. The people scattered in the rugged terrain deserve to have better medicare facilities, he added.
The Provincial President said National Conference has never encouraged the voices of regionalism, as it stands for and believes in the single entity of the State. To preserve this spirit, he stressed the need for appreciating regional sensitivities. He said inciting passions on regionalism must be the fort of other parties, which stand exposed for dubious characteristics and added that National Conference will forcefully eschew such tendencies. He said his party will continue to remain the representative of each region of the state and each segment of the society.
Mr Rana cautioned the Centre not to take any such step that sends wrong signals across the State. He said divisive politics and political opportunism has cost heavily in the past and therefore sagacity demands the people of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh to be given equal opportunities of progress and development. In this context, he referred to backstabbing of National Conference during the times of Sher-e-Kashmir Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and Dr Farooq Abdullah. “Such machinations won’t work now anymore”, he added.
The Provincial President described the setback to National Conference in recent elections as momentary, saying it will bounce back with a renewed vigour, as it has in the past.
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