The frustration of the leaders of Peoples Alliance for Gupkar Declaration(PAGD) though seems to be genuine as the government machinery has squeezed their space in the battle ground for DDC polls, but it will be a testing time for the people also to exhibit the intensity of their silent anger against the onslaught they have been subjected to on 4th August last year. The leaders of the ruling BJP especially the Union Home Minister Amit Shah and the all-powerful Prime Minister Narinder Modi, who have been chanting the “slogan” of Kashmiri people are happily on the path of development post abrogation of articles too have their honor at stake in Kashmir. Although it appears that the government by introducing this new pattern of governance through District Development Councils actually are deviating the attention of people from the basic issues and ground realities in Jammu & Kashmir. Otherwise, had there been any kind of sincerity, the government which successfully conducted Municipal, Panchayat & Parliament elections, besides are now holding a new format could have, instead, held elections to the J&K Legislative Assembly also. But, the uncertainty propping up in the minds of the leaders of contesting parties might have infected the brains of policy makers too in Delhi.
The leaders from PAGD are aghast over the treatment meted to them by the government machinery at a time when they want to interact with the people and woo them to vote their candidates. The leaders feel betrayed yet again, as their release from the custody was linked to the creating of a congenial atmosphere for beginning a political process after uprooting the bases of the relationship between India & Jammu & Kashmir last year in August. Farooq Abdullah in fact has written to the chief Election Commissioner of India that the security should not be used as a tool or excuse to interfere in the democratic process. The PAGD president, Farooq Abdullah in a detailed communication has accused the government machinery on many weird counts being used to force the PAGD candidates for DDC polls to stay away from the battle ground and confined to their secured rooms. The PAGD leaders are feeling the heat of the excessive use of the power by the government, the power they too used excessively when in power.
The situation is grim for the candidates fielded by the constituent parties of PAGD, as most of them are not popular enough to be recognized by the electorate in absentia, so they need to come out and introduce themselves to their electorate and then interact with them to convince them about their plans in their respective constituencies. However, this is a challenge to the stalwarts of PAGD like Farooq Abdullah, Mehbooba Mufti, Omer Abdullah and others to steer out victorious in the given circumstances only. Otherwise, they know well, the only chance they have got by virtue of uniting to fight the BJP aggression in every sphere of the governance. Now it is the time for PAGD leaders to prove their worth, people can only help them that too unwillingly, as they hold them responsible for the worst they are facing in the hands of the government.
But the government at the helm too has to understand that holding of elections doesn’t only mean selecting candidates of one or the other party, but it is a trust and faith of people in a constitution which has been drafted by the most credible people of the country, and by virtue of which 130 crore people are connected to each other. Holding of elections doesn’t mean to get your candidates elected through ballot, but to uphold the traditions of democracy chosen by those who got this country liberated from the illegal British rule, for the system of governance. The elections have the fragrance of your secular democracy, so for safeguarding the sanctity of this democratic process, you have to give space to the opposition to fight with full might, so that you can serve the cause of real elections and thus the democratic system.
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