Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh said here Monday that BJP is the only political Party which has consistently stood for the cause of Jammu and the Dogras.

Addressing a mega road show in support of Jugal Kishore Sharma, BJP candidate for the Jammu Lok Sabha constituency, Dr Singh said the BJP and the erstwhile Bharatiya Jana Sangh have been vociferously advocating the cause of Jammu and Dogras right from the times of the greatest Dogra of post-independence India, Prem Nath Dogra, the founder of the Praja Parishad and former National President of Bharatiya Jan Sangh.

He said the Bharatiya Jan Sangh and then the Bharatiya Janata Party in Jammu has been espousing the cause of Jammu and Dogras even at times when the Congress and its allies including the National Conference were continuously discriminating against this region and afflicting all kinds of hardship and injustice on Dogras and the people of Jammu region.

Taking a dig at opposition leaders, who now claim to be the protagonists of Jammu and the Dogras, Dr Singh said these were the leaders who had been for over half a century, dancing to the tune of their masters who discriminated against Jammu and Dogras because of their vote bank politics. At that time, he said, none of these leaders dared to raise their voice in support of Jammu or the Dogras. But the moment, the same leaders found themselves out of job or out of power, they suddenly took up the cause of Jammu and the Dogras to seek the lost political space for themselves and to keep themselves relevant by playing with the sentiments of the local people, the minister pointed out.

Dr Singh said if Prem Nath Dogra had even slightly dithered from his crusade, he could have easily become a Minister or part of the then government headed by Sheikh Abdullah or Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, but he stood his ground, unlike these so-called protagonists who have suddenly emerged as the sympathisers of Jammu and the Dogras after having enjoyed the loaves and fishes of the office for years together and inflicted all kinds of injustice on this region.

The BJP leader said those opposition leaders who seek votes in the name of Jammu are the ones who had discriminated against the Jammu youth in jobs and also in admission to higher educational institutions. ”Those who are today raising the cause of Dogras, are the ones responsible for having cancelled the Dogra Certificate thus depriving the youth of this region of recruitment in Armed Forces and they also denied 4 per cent reservation to the youth residing along the International border (IB),” he stressed.

Dr Singh said the vote this time is not simply a political vote but a vote of reverence and respect for Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has rolled out a series of people-centric, particularly women-centric welfare schemes with a great deal of sensitivity and without any bias or discrimination.