The star campaigner of the Congress party, Ghulam Nabi Azad, was left red-faced on the last day of campaigning when local residents in remote Dacchan and Marwah areas of Kishtwar shouted slogans against him and disrupted his meetings.
Accompanied by MoS Home Sajjad Ahmad Kitchloo soon after Azad landed in Saunder area of Dacchan, argument broke between political workers belonging to two rival parties. Before Azad started his meeting the situation went out of control and the local police and paramilitary forces advised the Union Health Minister to shun the meeting.
Irked over the behaviour of locals, who were shouting slogans ‘Go back Azad’, embarrassed Azad flew back without addressing them to his next campaign destination in Marwah area of Kishtwar.The drama, however, continued in Marwah as well where around 250 people gathered to listen to Azad.
According to an eyewitness, before Azad started his address some of the PDP and BJP supporters shouted slogans in support of their party candidates much to the chagrin of leaders of the ruling alliance.
Senior BJP leader Bali Bhagat told The Pioneer, ahead of Azad’s arrival in Dacchan an argument broke out between the party workers and as the situation went out of hands the police advised Azad against holding the meeting.Batting on a slippery wicket in the wake of complete polarisation of votes in hilly Doda and Kishtwar districts Azad is facing an uphill task to woo the electorate.
He was earlier seen slogging whole of Monday to encash the star power of Congress leader Raj Babbar to make dent in the BJP candidate’s vote bank to garner popular votes.Despite running an intensive campaign for over two weeks now, the master strategist of the Congress was personally unhappy with the people’s response to his general meetings and was seen making every possible effort to woo the electorate ahead of the polling day on April 17.
On Tuesday as campaigning came to an end the nervousness in the Congress camp was rather visible even to a naked eye as the senior party leaders were not sure of the poll outcome in favour of the alliance candidate.
“It is not going to be a cake walk. It is an uphill climb for the Congress stalwart in his home State thanks to Modi wave gaining momentum even in remote hills of Doda and Kishtwar district” political observers closely following Azad’s campaign told The Pioneer.
Thin attendance of supporters during road shows and street corner meetings had earlier dampened the mood of the campaign managers of the Union Health Minister.The BJP in contrast had received healthy response of the local population to public meetings of BJP leader Vinod Khanna. The purpose of organising the meeting was to consolidate vote base in support of the party candidate Dr Jitendra Singh.
Insiders in the Azad camp revealed that he is making last minute efforts to garner the massive support but is facing resistance owing to non-cooperation of the sitting Congress MP lal Singh and his followers.
After lal Singh was denied mandate by the party high command he shifted base to Uttarakhand and in his absence his supporters have refused to lend helping hand to Azad.On an average Azad is making several hundred personal phone calls to grass root level workers in areas where he could not visit owing to paucity of time for canvassing.He is personally monitoring the make shift control room on hourly basis to ensure no one is left out in the rush hour.
Meanwhile, BJP candidate Dr Jitendra Singh is banking on the charisma of PM nominee Narendra Modi.On the last day of the campaigning BJP Chief Rajnath Singh raised the poll pitch in support of the party candidate in Udhampur Addressing enthusiastic gathering of BJP supporters Rajnath assured better job opportunities and skill development avenues for youth in the area. Rajnath also promised to formulate a National Refugee and Rehabilitation policy.
Political observers closely following Union Health Ministers campaign told The Pioneer, “the star campaigner of the congress party is losing its star power and the same was evident during the road shows and various election meetings”. The campaign page of Ghulam Nabi Azad on the social networking site is also flooded with slogans eulogizing leadership qualities of Narendra Modi.
Azad is also suffering backlash of Kishtwar riots in Doda and Kishtwar belt as traditional congress party supporters are under pressure to dump the party as its leaders failed to deliver justice to the victims of the Kishtwar riots.
Presence of PDP, National Panthers party leader Prof Bhim Singh and independent candidate Anil Gupta, son of veteran leader Prof Chaman lal Gupta are going to add to the miseries of the two main contenders by eating in to their vote bank.The overall voting percentage on the day of polling is most likely to determine the fate of the poster boy of the congress party.