Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir National Conference General Secretary Ali Muhammad Sagar on Saturday said the picture that was being presented of Jammu and Kashmir is quite different from the ground reality, saying the deep sense of insecurity prevailing in the region is saturated with the absence of democracy.
Sagar, who was addressing party functionaries in the Nawa-e-Subha said denial of democracy and basic rights to people continues to remain a preferred mode in J&K. “People’s interests are best served by a democratically elected government. Our people have gone back three decades in terms of development. The condition of people is terrible both economically and psychologically,” Sagar said.
“It was claimed that the measures of August 2019 will bring the region at par with other states of India as the government has taken measures to undo the so-called historical wrongs. In reality, it’s not the development, employment generation, and good governance that have received a boost. In reality, it’s the widespread despondency, unemployment, development deficit, and economic slump that have reached epic levels. Facts have unfortunately become the biggest casualty in telling the J&K story as an exaggerated push to set a narrative of normalcy and another agenda,” he said.
“BJP is citing the absence of grassroots level democracy as the primary cause of the mistrust in people in Kashmir. In bringing the region directly under the Centre as a Union Territory, the government, it is clear, has overlooked the hard lessons learned by it in the past seventy years. The government needs to be better informed of the implications of denying democracy to people. The road to peace in Jammu and Kashmir goes through democracy. I hope the policymakers remain closer to facts, learning from the past and avoiding experimentations,” he added.
He said that the prevailing situation in Jammu and Kashmir is abysmal as people are feeling suffocated due to the absence of popular Government and moves taken by the authoritative regime with people finding nowhere to go to resolve their issues.
He further said that only an election to elect the Assembly can restore the faith of the people in the Government because the bureaucratic rulers are non-considerate and take decisions only to please their bosses sitting in Delhi giving two hoots to the problems being faced by the common man.
