Jammu: National President of Rajya Navjawan Shakti party Bashir Ahmad Ganie said on Tuesday that his party is ready to contest the Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir. Addressing a press conference, he said that the people of Jammu and Kashmir are waiting for Assembly elections so that the elected government may resolve the issues of common people, especially unemployment.
The unemployment rate in Jammu and Kashmir witnessed a slight reduction in the past two years from 22.2 per cent to 15 per cent at the end of December 2021. According to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), the unemployment rate in October 2021 was at 22.2 per cent against the national average of 7.74 per cent.
He alleged that BJP’s 'double engine Sarkar’ in Jammu and Kashmir has made 2021 a year of disappointment for the people, especially youth by pushing Jammu and Kashmir towards a crisis of identity, culture, jobs and land instead bringing them out of it.
"The government should have further strengthened the provisions of guarantee to provide jobs to local youths and jobs should not be of only labuor category, but at all levels. As for the private sector, 90 per cent of jobs should be reserved for local youth in order to address the genuine demands of the common youth of Jammu and Kashmir," said Ganie.
While replying to questions regarding the draft report of the Delimitation Commission expressed his dismay over the suggestions proposed in the interim report by the three-member commission. He said that his party will not accept attempts to divide the people of Jammu and Kashmir. "The recommendations are bizarre. It’s a sheer mockery of universally accepted and constitutionally established norms of representation,” said Ganie. He also said that the exercise was an attempt to disempower and disenfranchise the people of Kashmir.
“The Commission’s refusal to change its earlier assertions is least surprising. To rub salt to the wounds of the Kashmiris, we have a new wondrous invention in the form of a parliamentary constituency invented by merging two regions, south Kashmir and Rajouri. The inhabitants of these two regions have totally different aspirations, problems, and challenges," said Ganie.
“This whole exercise seems to be an exercise in disruption. the proposal was incongruous with the Commission’s earlier argument of taking into account the topography and difficult terrain while re-mapping the poll constituencies," he added.
“The Anantnag-Rajouri parliamentary constituency is proposed comprising Rajouri and Poonch districts from the Jammu division and Anantnag, Kulgam and parts of Shopian from Kashmir division. The fair-weather Mughal road connecting the districts of Poonch and Rajouri with Kulgam and Anantnag districts via Shopian remains shut for months together, making the border districts off-limits to the Valley. There is a general feeling that the Commission’s recommendations are in line with the current ruling dispensation," he added. Ganie urged the government to release all detainees of Jammu and Kashmir.
Also read:Delimitation Commission likely to make changes to draft recommendations
