As the campaign in the ongoing Municipal polls in Jammu & Kashmir is reaching its crescendo, the common issues of 'aam admi' hovering around 'bijli', 'sadak' and 'pani' have taken a back seat while slug fest between Congress and BJP and other issues of national politics have taken centre stage.
Almost all the parties in the fray barring independent candidates are resorting to raking up emotive issues to pin down their nearest rivals.
Instead of debating their own report card before the electorate the State BJP leadership is still relying on the charisma of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to bail them out. On the other hand the opposition parties including the Congress and Panthers party are cornering the BJP over ignoring the plight of people belonging to Jammu region and its poor performance in the State Government.
To defeat Congress at any cost in the municipal polls the BJP has gone to the extent of telling the voters in municipal wards, "every single vote in support of the Congress party will be a vote in favour of Pakistan, and terrorist outfits like Lashkar-e- Toiba and Jaish-e- Mohammad".
Every where State BJP Chief Ravinder Raina is addressing election meetings in support of party candidates he is raking up the issue of congress party's stand on terrorism.
Addressing series of meeting in Jammu west Ravinder Raina told voters, "when congress party leaders issue a statement cadre of Lashkar-e- Toiba, Hizbul Mujahideen, Jaish-e- Mohammad, Taliban, and Hurriyat acknowledge it with loud clapping".
In these election meetings Raina is frequently posing a direct question before the electorate" how can you support a party which is busy abusing jawans of the Indian army"?
Insiders in the party claim that the State BJP Chief has adopted this approach in the final leg of the campaigning. "They have realised now that the Congress party candidates and party rebel candidates are throwing tough challenge to the BJP candidates on ground zero that is why they have started raising national issues of politics at the level of municipal polls to defeat them".
More than 40 rebel BJP candidates in the fray are receiving good response from the masses as they remained in direct contact unless parachuted party workers and those who chose back door entry to join the fray at the last minute.
Cornered by angry voters on ground zero BJP is also raising the issue of settlement of Rohingyas and over 1 lakh Bangladeshi nationals in Jammu.
Karan Sat Sharma, BJYM leader and son of former State BJP Chief Sat Sharma in his campaign meetings exposing the role of the Congress and National conference in allowing Rohingyas to settle down in Jammu.
He told voters, "between 2008 and 2014 both National Conference and Congress facilitated illegal settlement of one lakh Bangladeshi's in Jammu. He said if you people will repeat the same mistake these 1 lakh Bangladeshi's will multiply in to 5 lakh and in next 10 years local people from Jammu would be forced to run away from Jammu to settle at any other place. He cautioned voters to remain vigilant and not to treat these elections as routine elections. He said these illegal immigrants were allowed to encroach upon State/forest land on the outskirts of Jammu and these parties remained mum and mute spectator.
Responding to these campaign tactics former Congress Minister Raman Bhalla is leading the charge against the BJP in the municipal polls in his constituency. Bhalla is claiming these polls are a golden opportunity to teach former allies a bitter lesson. "BJP- PDP remained in power for more than 40 months and now out of power they are passing the buck on each other. Bhalla said "BJP used emotive slogans to exploit the sentiments of the people. Their truck with PDP was most opportunistic. The party took U-turns on the core issues without caring for the aspirations of the people of Jammu, who voted them immensely to power".Accusing BJP of bartering away the pride and honour of people of Jammu region to satisfy its lust for power, Bhalla appealed Jammuites to oppose, expose and depose the BJP’s juggernaut for its sheer opportunism.
JKNPP Chairman and former Minister Harsh Dev Singh in his election meetings is accusing the BJP of having played a second fiddle to PDP on varied issues including general governance, development, security and policy matters during its more than three year rule.
He said that with entire focus of both Union as well as State Govt remained on Kashmir centric issues, the people of the Dogra land were taken for granted and marginalised.
He said that not only the “Agenda of Alliance” ignored Jammu but the Central Government too seemed to be inclined towards Kashmir with hardly any initiative taken for addressing the age old bias and prejudice against this region.
He said that discrimination in recruitment particularly by PSC and SSB, Delimitation of Assembly constituencies, deportation of Rohingyas, withdrawal of cases against youth booked during Amarnath Land row, Artificial Tawi Lake project, Dogri satellite channel for Jammu, State Subjects issues of J&K daughters married outside etc were some of the issues which were persistently being raked up even by BJP workers but were ignored by party Ministers while remaining in office.