Jugal Kishore files papers, harps on Rohingya issue

Dinesh Manhotra

Tribune News Service

Jammu, March 22

Within minutes of filing his nomination papers from the Jammu-Poonch Lok Sabha seat, BJP candidate Jugal Kishore Sharma raked up emotive issues to reap the political benefits in the Hindu majority region of the state.

“The deportation of Rohingya and the citizenship rights to the West Pakistan refugees will be main issues during the campaign,” Jugal Kishore Sharma, the BJP candidate from the Jammu-Poonch Lok Sabha seat, said after filing his papers.

Like other BJP candidates across the country, Sharma is also banking on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to retain the seat which he had won by a huge margin of 2,57,280 votes in the 2014 elections. He, however, made it a point to highlight the emotive issues after filing his nomination papers.

“In the last five years, we tried our best to solve the issues — granting citizenship rights to the West Pakistan refugees and deportation of Rohingya from Jammu,” he said. He vowed to solve the issues permanently after his re-election.

Interestingly, the BJP and Congress are shifting the blame on each otherfor illegal settlement of Rohingya in Jammu.

While BJP leaders have charged the Congress with allowing Rohingya to live in Jammu, the latter has accused the former with doing politics on the issue. “What has the BJP done in the last five years to deport the illegal foreigner settlers?” asked Congress leader Raman Bhalla.

He said there was anger in the West Pakistan refugees as the BJP had adopted deceitful tactics during its five-year rule and had not solved the humanitarian issue.

Sharma shifted the blame on the local administration for creating hurdles in addressing the genuine demands of the refugees.

“Some elements in the state administration are working as stumbling blocks in disbursing the relief sanctioned by the Centre to the West Pakistan refugees,” Bhalla added.

He promised to remove all hurdles after the elections.

According to a rough estimate, there are 60,000 West Pakistan refugee votes in the Jammu-Poonch Lok Sabha seat and about 30,000 votes in the Udhampur-Doda seat so the BJP is trying to mollify the community.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the refugees had supported the BJP with a hope that their issues would be solved by the party as it had repeatedly promised them that it would solve their problems once and for all.

Earlier, Jugal Kishore Sharma, accompanied by BJP state president Ravinder Raina, Rajya Sabha member Shamsher Singh Manhas and some former ministers, filed his nomination papers here.

Unkept promises

During the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP had promised to grant the citizenship rights to the West Pakistan refugees. During his visit to Jammu in June 2018, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh had announced Rs 5.5 lakh compensation for each of the 5,764 refugee families but the promise has remained only on paper. The BJP had also promised to deport Rohingya.