Why are Mainstream Leaders Thumping Chests: Anti Encroachment Drives

All of a sudden, the National Conference, PDP, PC and Congress have come out to speak against the anti-encroachment drives currently ongoing across J&K, but they are still guarded, not really speaking their heart out because, somewhere they know that they are at fault; they should have done something when they were in power, but didn’t. The way the leaders of these political parties have spoken so far, it seems that they are ready to “resist” and “criticise” the administration’s move of land eviction but in the background. What they are eyeing is to make the general public take the administration head-on while they hide in a corner for a better view.

Even though they are seen thumping their chest and shedding crocodile, expressing sympathies with people who face the heat, the reality is that they are themselves responsible for the apathy of the common masses in J&K, especially the poor, because they could have done a lot to save people the trouble they are facing right now. But, alas, they did not. Even then, they secured their sides and even today, they are seen doing the same. They could have easily led the door open for the people to regularize the state land through proper channels and under the Roshni Land Act, but they didn’t even succeed in doing that.

How pathetic of them that they didn’t achieve what they were eyeing through the Act; couldn’t set the required eligibility criteria and also could not achieve the set target of Rs 25000 crore which then shrunk to a mere slightly over Rs 76 crore. What is more shameful on their part is that they could not even incorporate the constitutional guarantees under Roshni Land Act which would have saved people, especially those who are left with nothing, not even their homes. Now that we see these politicians, acting, pretending and trying to share the pain and grief of people, it just makes one laugh and laugh loud.

It all comes down to the LG-led administration which must find a way out of this quagmire where the poor people are at the receiving end. It must find a way to accommodate those who are on the verge of, or, have already lost everything. There is a hope that the administration will come up with a scheme which will have constitutional guarantees for the poor with set eligibility criteria so that the people, especially those who deserve get to secure their sides and live a peaceful life. Concerning influential and big-wigs, who have gone up and above in encroachments, they must be pursued and the land must be retrieved from them to be put to better use. As of now, protecting the poor people must be the priority of the administration and to do that, if LG Manoj Sinha has to go the extra mile, he should do that in the larger interest of the public: because what matters is the public interest.