The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) joined hands with the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to form a government in Jammu and Kashmir in March 2015. What followed next can only be termed as disastrous. The entire country witnessed the Jammu & Kashmir residents suffer as the misrule continued. Finally, they parted ways today and abandoned the state.
By simply taking a look at the numbers, it becomes clear that the BJP government at the Centre and state failed at every front. The “muscular approach” of Narendra Modi and Ajit Doval proved to be toxic for J&K.
1. In 2002, Kashmir had 27,000 tourists. In 2010, over 10 lakh visitors came to Kashmir, while in 2011 and 2012, the numbers stood at 12 and 14 lakh, respectively.
2. In 2013, Firstpost reported that there weren’t enough hotel rooms to accommodate the tourists in Kashmir and the subsequent surge in the hotel room and air ticket prices. In 2015, tourist numbers dropped to a little over 9 lakh. In 2016, a mere 4.5 lakh visited Kashmir.
3. In 2012, when the legislative council polls were held in Jammu & Kashmir after 32 years, the voter turnout was 90 per cent. In 2008 assembly elections, the turnout was about 60 per cent. In 2014, it was 65 per cent. In 2017, by-polls it was a mere 7 per cent.
4. Want more facts? As per a report in a national daily, no votes were cast in one assembly segment and only 3 in another.
5. In 2017, Lt. Gen D.S Hooda said: “Politicians must step up. They must stop vitiating the atmosphere further, and help to find a way forward. What we don’t see is any politician stepping forward, reaching out and saying that we must find some solutions.”
6. An IndiaSpend analysis of Jammu & Kashmir Police data shows that in the three years since March 2015, armed encounters between militants and security forces have increased by 53 per cent over the preceding three years. Deaths in conflict have similarly increased by 51 per cent.
7. According to official figures, as many as 105 houses have been destroyed since 2015 in encounters in Pulwama, one of the two worst militancy-hit districts in south Kashmir.
8. As of April 10, at least one person died every day in Jammu and Kashmir. As of May 3, at least 45 youth had joined militant ranks in 2018, according to some estimates, a Scroll report said.
9. In Kathua, a child was brutally raped and murdered. Humanity was put to shame as BJP’s Kavinder Gupta, dismissed the case as a “small incident” adding that it should “not be given too much importance”. Two BJP ministers attended programmes supporting the rape accused and rallied for them too.
Opposition Underlines How BJP-PDP Created Chaos in J&K
Congress president Rahul Gandhi slammed the BJP-PDP alliance for “costing India strategically” and “destroying years of UPA’s hard work”.
The opportunistic BJP-PDP alliance set fire to J&K, killing many innocent people including our brave soldiers. It cost India strategically & destroyed years of UPA’s hard work. The damage will continue under President’s rule. Incompetence, arrogance & hatred always fails.
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) June 19, 2018
Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] chief Sitaram Yechury called out BJP for the “confused and ham-handed policies at centre and state”.
The situation in Jammu & Kashmir has deteriorated completely in the past three years due to naked opportunism and greed for power displayed by the BJP. As a party in power at the centre and state, the BJP cannot avoid responsibility for its actions.
— Sitaram Yechury (@SitaramYechury) June 19, 2018
Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said the BJP had committed a “Himalayan blunder” by forming a government with the PDP. “The alliance has devastated the state, be it economically or socially, and has left Jammu and Kashmir in a state of ruins,” he said.
National Conference working president Omar Abdullah said while he was not surprised by the BJP’s decision its timing took him by surprise.
Clearly, over the last month or a month-an-a-half, we have seen a marked and very significant deterioration in the situation in the state and that perhaps is one of the reasons, but beyond that, I do not want to speculate as to what was the reason for the BJP,” Abdullah told reporters in Srinagar.