Avtar Bhat
JAMMU, June 7: Senior BJP leaders in the State deliberately tried to sabotage the reception to be hosted in favour of Union Minister of State in Prime Minister’s Office, Dr Jitendra Singh on his maiden visit to City of Temples today after he took over as Minister last month.
No senior leader except for party vice president Chander Parkash Ganga and general secretary Kavinder Gupta were seen at Jammu Airport to receive the Minister who proved to be a giant killer after defeating the Congress heavy weight and former Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare Ghulam Nabi Azad in April 17 Lok Sabha elections from Kathua, Udhampur and Doda Constituency.
Dr Singh, having a very good profile was appointed as MoS with independent charge by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his oath ceremony on May 26 but this was not digested by some leaders in J&K unit of BJP who from day first tried to spread canards and disinformation campaign against Dr Singh, who was appointed MoS with independent charge by Prime Minister purely on the basis of his qualification, talent and merit.
No senior leader was seen at Jammu Airport to receive Dr Singh while top ranking civil and police officers including DGP K Rajendra and Divisional Commissioner, Jammu Shantmanu had come to receive him. Except the State unit of BJYM led by Ravinder Raina and BJP Industrial Cell convener Vikram Randhawa and other activists who took Dr Singh in the shape of a procession in open jeep no senior leader turned up there.
Later senior leaders including the Party State chief and ex State presidents skipped the function also hosted at Party Headquarters by Party in honour of Dr Singh. Except BJP Legislative Party leader, Ashok Khajuria, Party general secretary (Organization) Ashok Kaul, convener BJP Cells, Sat Sharma (CA), MLAs Bharat Bushan, Choudhary Sham and Durga Dass, Incharge Jammu –Poonch Lok Sabha Constituency Yudhvir Sethi, State secretary, Munish Sharma, Women Wing president Priya Sethi ,BJYM chief Ravinder Raina, Sanjay Baru were present while other senior leaders skipped the function which was also organized in a narrow room where the people got suffocated and nervous due to sweltering heat and over-crowdedness.
Total chaos and confusion prevailed at Party Headquarters as the entire function was organized in a hotchpotch manner just for the sake of formality and there was no enthusiasm seen on the ground as the senior party leaders openly tried to sabotage the function, which could have been organized in a much better way in the compound of Party headquarters as was done earlier after Jugal Kishore Sharma and Dr Singh were elected as MPs. This negative role is viewed as a move to project Party in poor light in coming Assembly elections.
No enthusiasm was shown by the Party today though appointment of Dr Singh a son of the soil as MoS in PM’s office was a matter of celebration and pride for the people of entire Jammu region.
Even the junior workers of the Party felt dejected with the role of senior leadership saying that this will hit the poll prospectus in the coming Assembly elections. The negative role of the leadership was also viewed seriously by the people and some leaders within Party. They were of the view that people can tolerate blunders of other parties but not even a minor mistake by a BJP leaders as they have high expectations from the Party.
The factionalism in the party is so sharp that two rival group owing allegiance to two leaders of the party clashed during the function organized in honour of Dr Singh in Udhampur town late in the evening. The warring factions of the Party raised slogans against each others group in the D N Hall and one worker was injured in the clash.
Reports said that two factions had made two chariots for Dr Singh’s rally but Dr Singh later preferred the chariot made by the faction of Pawan Khajuria on which senior Party leader Pawan Gupta also rode.
Police also took one Virender son of Puran Chand into custody for preventive measures and later he was released on bail, SHO Udhampur Mahesh Sharma said.
Party organizing general secretary who was also present in the function said BJP will probe the issue and disciplinary action will be taken against those found guilty.
Addressing the function at BJP Office Dr Jitendra Singh said that job fairs will be held in all districts of the State to provide employment opportunities to the youth. He said this fair will be started from Kathua district first and later all districts of the State will be included in it.
“We will organize job fairs in every district because we had come with the slogans of development’’, he said, adding the job fair first of its kind will be held in July in the Kathua township and in this regard he has talked with some multinational companies.
“I had talked with them and they will hold the placement camp. If this is successful, it will continue in all the districts’’, he added.
Dr Singh also disclosed that the State will soon have an emergency number facility in health sector and “we have prepared a proposal for 100 ambulances for the State’’.
Referring to the completion of Ganpath bridge on Chenab river in Doda, he said that the document on it is being prepared and General Reserve Engineering Force will construct the bridge’’.
Dr Singh said another bridge will be constructed in Kathua on Ravi river in Kaniya Gadyal, he added.
Maintaining that the roadmap on the issue of Kashmiri Pandits, West Pak refugees and PoJK refugees is almost ready, Dr Singh said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has almost given nod to the roadmap on rehabilitation of Kashmiri migrants and one time package to West Pak and PoJK refugees. “The roadmap on both the issues is almost ready and the final decision can be announced any time’’, he added.
Dr Jitendra Singh while welcoming the Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister , Omar Abdullah’s recent statement that he would love to work with Mr Modi on KPs rehabilitation, he said “we are not against any body ready to working with us and Government has already made this clear’’.
Dr Singh said that new weather forecasting mechanism will be developed by Science and Technology to improve weather forecasting on the eve of Amarnath Yatra. Through this technology Monsoon will also be predicted, he added.
He said a long term development programme will be undertaken for the State and road networking will be taken up in hand in Kandi area.
He said new KVs will be opened in the uncovered areas in the State while the Thermal Power House will be constructed in Kathua, he added.
He said no delegation of scientists going abroad will be led by Ministers but scientists only in future and this was a major decision in last 60 years.
Later in the evening a joint felicitation function was organised in honour of Dr Jitendra Singh at Hari Niwas by scholars of Jammu University and SKUAST-J.
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel