For the first time in four years of the Central rule in Jammu and Kashmir, BJP has come out strongly in favour of having a political government to replace the existing “ bureaucratic setup,” which it alleged was working against the people.
All the charges that the opposition, particularly the National Conference of Abdullah, PDP of Muftis, and Congress, has been levelling against the UT administration of being too far removed from the people and insensitive to the issues and grievances of the masses, are now being echoed by the BJP, the party that ruling at the Centre and in control of the things at every level in the union territory of J&K.
BJP’s J&K unit president Ravinder Raina even went to the extent of suggesting that there were some bureaucrats in the administration busy in sabotaging the prospects of the party coming to power after the elections, hence they, he insisted, were “ working against it as part of a well-designed conspiracy.”
Raina referred to some of the anti-people and controversial orders of the administration. He said whenever there is talk of polls – Assembly polls – in J&K, there is one or the other administrative order that seeks to cause resentment among the masses,. He cited the recent order in which the government said that the services of the contractual employees working in departments of sports, agriculture and forests would be terminated and these posts will be advertised afresh. This set a wave of anger among the employees, and they chastised BJP and its leadership for allowing such things to happen . . They thronged the BJP office in Jammu and staged massive sit in.
As the pressure mounted on the party and its local leadership, they asked the government to clarify, which the administration did by claiming that the proposal to terminate the services of such employees was suggested by a panel and it was not final. Therefore, making it clear that the services of hundreds of employees recruited over the years would not be given termination order. But this nevertheless created a deeply embarrassing situation for the party, as the employees upset by the contradictory versions coming from the government were now pressing for the regularisation of their services before any disturbing order regarding their services reappears.
Sham Lal Sharma, senior vice president of the party, while assuring the agitating employees that he, too, would hit the roads along with them to get justice for them, commented that the “ bureaucratic set up would not last forever. The political government will be there sooner or later.”
The saffron party is trying to play out the things in its favour on two parallel counts – accusing the bureaucracy in the UT administration working against the interests of the people. The BJP leaders have minced no words in hurling accusations of bureaucrats being “ insensitive and inaccessible “ to the people and their grievances, thus identifying itself with the people and the problems faced by them in the regime in which bureaucrats call shots. Alternatively, it is saying that the people are coming to the party headquarters, staging sit-ins, and holding protest demonstrations because they have no other place to go- an indictment of the UT administration. Simultaneously, the party, which is held accountable by the people for the plight inflicted on them because it rules at the Centre, washes its hands off the administrative decisions by claiming that the “ BJP is not ruling” the place. It projects itself as hope for all the people because they believe that the BJP alone can plead their case. This in itself is the approach of having a cake and eating it too. Blaming the administration for all the decisions that went wrong, and simultaneously claiming that it is there to hear out the aggrieved sections of masses.
BJP president of J&K UT also suggested that there were some bureaucrats who did not want the BJP to come to power, hence they were “ hatching conspiracies against the party,” and he assured that once the BJP comes to power, it will “ drag these bureaucrats by collar and send them to jail.”
| Posted by Sameer Khan | 
