Last Updated on November 20, 2020 at 12:47 pm
It has not been long when BJP said that the DDC Elections are going to be a fight between the BJP and ‘Gupkar Gang’ which gets orders from the neighbouring Pakistan.
Many BJP leaders also said that Mehbooba Mufti should go to Pakistan and Farooq Abdullah can go to China. Obviously, they were not suggesting they take a break from busy election campaign and visit one of these two neighbouring nations.
Many other BJP leaders, believes that the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the National Conference (NC) leaders are not nationalistic enough and should shift to the two enemy nations of India.
This hatred is mutual and not one-sided as the NC too criticizes BJP over any issue that it can. It has hardly been a day when NC leader and former Chief Minister of the erstwhile state Omar Abdullah alleged that non-BJP candidates in upcoming DDC elections are stopped from campaigning. The NC is also a part of the People’s Alliance for Gupkar declaration (PAGD) whose main job is to restore the special status of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.
Both the NC and the BJP are arch-rivals of each other and each of them would call the other undemocratic or anti-national. But even when their ideology is poles apart, it is surprising to note that both the parties are alliance partners in the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council, Kargil (LAHDCK).
LAHDCK has 30 members in total out of which, four members are nominated by the Ladakh Union Territory administration and the rest 26 are chosen by elections. At present, the maximum number of the elected members are from NC that is 10. Out of the remaining 16, eight are from Congress, three from BJP and remaining five are independents. These members were elected by elections contested in 2018.
Even though the BJP and NC contested elections without collaborating with each other, they colluded with each-other after the elections result to form an alliance for the purpose of sharing power.
Feroz Khan of the NC is Chairman/Chief Executive Councillor of the Hill Council. A BJP leader by the name of Muhammad Ali Chandan is one of the four other Executive Councillors, and holds the portfolios of Health, Forests, Wildlife, Revenue, Industrial Training Institute, Agriculture, and Soil Conservation.
When asked about the coalition of BJP and NC, BJP Ladakh President Jamyang Tsering Namgyal said that they are in alliance with NC in Kargil openly and will continue to be. According to him, the Kashmir unit of NC has nothing to do with the party’s unit in Kargil.
The 2018 elections of the Kargil Hill Council didn’t empower anyone to a clear winner. Earlier, the NC and Congress shared power until the 2019 Lok Sabha elections when both of them set their ways apart. Then, NC got into an alliance with four independents and two PDP councillors, both of which shifted to the BJP causing both the parties to form an alliance.
Home Minister Amit Shah had attacked the PAGD by saying that the ‘Gupkar Gang’, of which NC is an important part, wants foreign powers to intervene in Jammu and Kashmir.
The question should be asked that if the BJP believes in what it preaches then why the ‘supreme authority of nationalism’ is in an alliance with an ‘anti-nationalistic’ party?
