Staunch supporters of BJP say they were taken for granted
Mohinder Verma
Bhaderwah: There is strong resentment among inhabitants of several areas of Bhaderwah Assembly constituency against former MLA Daleep Singh Parihar of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as neither could he do justice with those who had reposed blind faith in him during last Assembly elections nor could he win the hearts of those who had preferred to cast votes in the favour of other candidates. Even the staunch supporters of the saffron party that too from Bhaderwah town have gathered an impression that they were taken for granted by their elected representative for three years as far as redressal of development related issues is concerned.
People of vast areas of Bhaderwah constituency are of the opinion that it was a golden opportunity for the former MLA to get majority of the issues redressed that too in a shortest possible time-frame keeping in view the fact that there was Government of his party in the State as well as at Centre. But, name any vital sector the people have a tale of grievances to tell, which put a question mark on the performance of the ex-MLA.
This scenario came to the notice of EXCELSIOR during a random survey conducted in several areas of the Bhaderwah Assembly segment recently. The people were seen facing difficulties due to pitiable condition of roads particularly those leading to the tourist destinations, lack of adequate manpower in health and educational institutions, improper irrigation and drinking water facilities and lack of adequate arrangements for promptly fighting the fire incidents, which generally increase during winter months.
Some of the people went to the extent of mentioning that even those issues which were raised during the ‘Public Darbars’ conducted by the former MLA have remained un-addressed till date and for them holding of grievances redressal camps was an exercise in futility.
“Such camps don’t assume any significance if the issues projected at this forum have to be taken casually by the officers concerned as well as the elected representative of the people”, rued residents of Bhatolli, Manoo and Chilli of Gandoh Sub-Division whose grievances pertaining to blacktopping of roads, deployment of adequate number of teachers in the educational institutions and sufficient manpower in health centres, repair of power supply lines and augmentation of water supply have remained unaddressed.
“There is shortage of passenger vehicles in these areas which leads to overloading of the available vehicles but the former MLA failed to arrange State Road Transport Corporation vehicles despite making assurances during public grievances redressal camps”, said a group of people at Gandoh, adding “the failure of the former MLA on this front is notwithstanding the fact that Minister of State with Independent Charge of Transport Department was from the Bharatiya Janata Party and it was not a big-deal to ensure deployment of sufficient SRTC buses in the interior areas”.
While people of several parts of constituency complained that issues projected during grievances redressal camps remained unaddressed, vast population could not be reached frequently by Daleep Singh Parihar after winning last Assembly elections. Thanala, Sherki and Beja are among the list of such areas. Due to lack of former MLA’s attention these Panchayats could not get proper road connectivity till date.
“We have been told a number of times that Detailed Project Report for road to Sherki via Beja and Thanala has been prepared but we have not seen work on the ground till date”, said Shakoor Ahmed Wani, Sarpanch of Thanala Panchayat.
He said that Thanala was declared as Model Village in 2006 with the objective of providing all basic facilities to its inhabitants but till date there is no such facility which depicts this village as model one. A last village located on Bhaderwah-Chamba road, Thanala lacks all basic facilities a model village should have such as drinking water, electricity, toilet facilities and healthcare. “Due to improper power supply particularly during the evening hours the students are not able to study properly as they are completely dependent on the light of firewood or kerosene lamps”, Sarpanch said, adding “neither MLA nor any officer from the administration is ready to take the problems of Thanala people seriously”.
Though Jai Valley is considered as one of the major tourist destinations of Bhaderwah and attracts large number of tourists every year yet the condition of road leading to this picturesque place depicts complete non-seriousness of the former MLA, who otherwise was having a good opportunity to get the condition of road improved by taking up issue vociferously with the then MoS R&B (Sunil Sharma) and the then MoS Tourism (Priya Sethi), both from the BJP.
At most of the places the road leading to Jai Valley is so congested and shabby that nobody can judge whether he or she is going to such a beautiful place. Moreover, the tourist spot doesn’t have any major source of entertainment for the visitors. While Army area in the immediate vicinity of the tourist resort has network of electricity supply, the tourist spot completely lacks the same which is the testimony of non-serious approach of all the concerned authorities as well as former MLA, who otherwise issued numerous statements during his three years tenure that all out efforts were being made to give necessary boost the tourism activities in Bhaderwah.
The water of numerous hand-pumps at various locations in Bhaderwah constituency particularly in Chinta Valley installed for providing drinking water to the people was found muddy and people said, “the issue was brought to the notice of the former MLA a number of times but we received only assurances about immediate action”.
Inordinate delay in sanctioning of new ration depots, fire stations, forest depots and restoration of irrigation khuls were other common demands raised by people of almost all those areas which were visited by EXCELSIOR team. People said that they have not heard about up-gradation of any school and opening of new Anganwari centres.
In Seri Bazaar area, a number of shopkeepers, who are considered as staunch supporters of BJP, said, “Daleep Parihar had taken us for granted…..he was under an impression that we have no option but to vote for the BJP as such he chose not to pay required attention towards our grievances. His focus remained on wooing the voters of other communities”.
“What else we could expect from our representative if he fails to ensure adequate doctors in the Sub-District Hospital Bhaderwah”, they said. As per the information provided by the people, even Gandoh hospital was lacking adequate number of doctors.
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