The BJP top brass may have blamed outgoing Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti for poor governance, but part of the blame lies with the non-performing assets of the BJP also, as they too failed to implement the developmental agenda of the party. Big ticket developmental projects are yet to take off on ground zero and people across Jammu region were clearly unhappy with the performance of the BJP Ministers.

According to political pundits, in many of the big ticket developmental projects that are yet to take off, no one but BJP Ministers incharge of these departments are to be blamed for.

Starting with Artificial Tawi Lake, development of Tawi river front on the pattern of Sabarmati river front, Construction of AIIMS, starting of five Medical colleges, Smart City, several road projects, conservation of heritage properties, modernisation of Jammu railway station, etc, failed to see the light of the day. In some of the cases some paper work, tender work must have been completed but four years is not a short time to initiate work on these big ticket projects.

Despite receiving full support of the Union Government, local BJP Ministers, holding charge of key Ministries failed in their duty to execute these projects.

According to senior party leaders, if in the coming elections the BJP fails to perform, the blame would fall on these party Ministers as it was their poor planning and lack of vision and administrative skills which resulted in undue delay in the implementation of these projects.

Incidentally, till a few weeks ago the BJP repeatedly claimed that the development works were on course and saw no problem from the side of Mehbooba Mufti.

Before claiming on Tuesday that it has become untenable for the BJP to continue in the alliance Government in the State, BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav had recently made two other significant statements on the working of BJP-PDP alliance Government in a span of 15 days.

Close scrutiny of these two statements clearly suggested that the both the alliance partners of the Mehbooba-led regime were happily working on implementing ‘Agenda of Alliance’ in the State.

On April 14, Ram Madhav had said the PDP-BJP coalition Government was not facing any problem and will continue to work. He was addressing a Press conference convened in the lawns of the official residence of former Deputy Chief Minister Dr Nirmal Singh in Jammu

When asked to comment whether PDP is ‘forcefully’ dictating its political agenda and the BJP was struggling to implement its developmental agenda in the State, Madhav had said, “The PDP-BJP Government is not being dictated by anyone. The Government is working on Agenda of Alliance (AoA). We are taking developmental agenda forward. Lot of development has taken place in Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh during last three years.’’

After a gap of 15 days on April 30, when the day party inducted new faces in the Council of Ministers, Ram Madhav had rejected the claims that there was resentment among BJP cadre against the arbitrary decisions taken by the Chief Minister. “Nobody has surrendered before anyone,” he had said.

Clearly, till 15 days, the BJP leadership and the party Ministers in the Mehbooba Government did not find any reason to blame the Chief Minister for non execution of several key development projects. When the dust settles down, the development or lack of it may become the main agenda of politics in Jammu.

Courtesy: The Pioneer, Thursday, 21 June 2018 | Mohit Kandhari | Jammu