SRINAGAR: The BJP has declared the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) “Gupkar gang” which wants “foreign forces to intervene in Jammu and Kashmir”, but in the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council, Kargil (LAHDCK), the saffron party is actually sharing power with a PAGD member, the National Conference (NC).
Though dismissing it as “local arrangement”, BJP’s Jammu leaders say the saffron party and the NC “contested the Kargil Hill Council elections separately”.
“It is a local arrangement that has nothing to do with the current situation. It is not as if the two parties have come together today. It was done to keep the Congress out. Besides, in the current circumstances anything can happen. In any case by the next elections, the Kargil NC will also be part of the BJP,” they say.
The 2018 elections to the Kargil Hill Council resulted in a hung verdict. Though NC had an alliance with the Congress, later it entered into a coalition with two PDP councillors and four Independents. The PDP councillors joined the BJP, creating its alliance with the NC, they add.
Ahead of the coming DDC (District Development Council) elections in Jammu and Kashmir, the BJP is going hammer and tongs against the PAGD, its main rival. Stating that “Gupkar gang” wants foreign forces to intervene in Jammu and Kashmir, Home Minister Amit Shah said “Indian people will no longer tolerate an unholy ‘global gathbandhan’ against our national interest”.
“Either the Gupkar Gang swims along with the national mood or else the people will sink it.” Shah said, slamming PAGD which is seeking restoration of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir as it existed before the constitutional changes of August 5, 2019.