With six months more extension in president rule in Jammu and Kashmir, the mainstream political parties seem very aghast. They accuse New Delhi of depriving the local people of having their own elected government in place. But the New Delhi maintains that the elections for Assembly would be only held when the Election Commission of India is ready to hold and the government has nothing to do with it. Jammu and Kashmir is under the president’s rule after PDP-BJP government collapsed last year in June.
Going by the facts, during this coalition in place Kashmir witnessed massive chaos and uncertainty. While on one side the militancy has emerged as the major challenge, on the other side there was an absolute political instability in the government. The PDP was accused of mass corruption, nepotism and mis – governance in Kashmir. The angry BJP pulled the rug beneath the feet of former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti and plugged Kashmir into governor’s rule.
Meanwhile, ever since the president’s rule was imposed in state, the Kashmir seems heading for the peace and stability. The graph of militancy has enormously come down after centre launched massive anti insurgency operations in valley. The civilian causalities during the combat have also got minimized.
In fact no such causalities take place anymore. There are no shutdowns by the separatists which were affecting the normal life and hurting the economic prosperity of valley. The long pending demands of the employees of removing pay disparity was also approved by Governor Satyapal Malik. In fact the employees have been fighting for this genuine demand for over ten years.
Jammu and Kashmir became the first state in country where the recommendations for 7th pay commission were implemented on time without forcing over six lakh employees to come on roads to press for their demands unlike in past when fifth and sixth pay commission was implemented. Bringing Jammu and Kashmir Bank under the ambit of Right to Information was a historic step by governor. The twin flyovers Jahangir Chowk-Rambagh and at TRC centre which had made the life of common people miserable for years and plugged the entire city into chaos were also completed.
The elections delayed repeatedly for Panchayat Raj by successive regimes in Jammu and Kashmir were also held in state. The earlier regimes have always been playing the dilly delaying tactics fearing the loss of power to the grassroots. In the recent past Malik took a very innovative step of launching the “Back to village” initiative. Under this initiative the officers at secretariat were directed to reach out to the people in their respective villages to listen their grievances.
This initiative earned a huge applause and became a very successful event. There have been lots of many other initiatives that Malik took. And it has made evidently clear that the people in Kashmir are not favouring elections in near time and express their satisfaction in the president’s rule. In the past, the people have always been exploited by the political and elitist class. There are no reasons for the people to stress for the elections in near future.
What more is being expected from the governor to rejuvenate the defunct administrative set up of the state. He needs to stress for the implementation of File Tracking System (FTS) which will reduce the substantial corruption practise in administration and ensure speedy work. Revenue department is believed to be the den of corruption in state and speedy completion of land records digitisations will make the department transparent and accountable. Before going for the elections in state, the centre must set the administrative set up in auto mode; otherwise everything good done so far in last one year will go waste.
