While Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and other Kashmir centric political parties are stressing the BJP government at the centre to open unconditional dialogue with the separatists, but the people in general are yearning for good governance, quality life and eradication of corruption which Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised four years ago in his election campaign in Jammu and Kashmir.
The common people in all the three regions of the state—Jammu, Kashmir valley and Ladakh—are fed up with the corrupt system that continues to rule the roost and are least bothered whether the Modi government initiates talks with the pro-Pakistan separatists or not.
The quality of life that Modi pledged to bring here is still a distant dream as the basic needs of uninterrupted electric and drinking water supply and day to day needs of the people have yet to be streamlined.
The PDP-BJP ministerial team of Mehbooba is accused of being least bothered about the problems the common people were facing in their daily life and their rhetoric was confined to Indo-Pakistan talks and dialogue with the separatists. People in the Jammu region complain of step-motherly treatment by the government.
During his eleven visits to various parts of the valley and Jammu, the centre’s representative Dineshwar Sharma has been receiving scores of delegations that have demanded improvement in the quality of life by providing them the basic needs of electricity, drinking water, proper education infrastructure and road connectivity.
Governor NN Vohra has from time to time been asking Mehbooba to take effective steps to check corruption and introduce good governance in the state. However, his advice so far seems to have fallen in deaf ears.
During an earlier visit of Home Minister Rajnath Singh here, Vohra had reportedly appraised him of the widespread corruption and misgovernance in the state.
The three top separatists had on 29 May in a significant development reacted to Rajnath’s talks offer by announcing they were ready to join the dialogue process with the rider that the centre should first give clarity on its agenda for dialogue, but with passage of time they have started airing conflicting views.
The All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) organized a meeting of its constituents under the chairmanship of Ghulam Nabi Sumji, a trusted man of hardliner Syed Alishah Geelani, on 4 June two days before arrival of Rajnath to J&K and issued a statement describing the centre’s dialogue offer as “a farce just to hoodwink the international community”. “They start parroting dialogue and ceasefire” whenever they face “tough situation” at the international level.
Addressing the last Friday’s congregation at the Srinagar’s Jama Masjid, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, said that the Hurriyat was not in a hurry to enter into dialogue with the centre. His comment came immediately after Rajnath said in Srinagar that the centre was keen to talk to “right minded people and not likeminded ones”.