Local bodies, Panchayat elections: Tough for new Poonch BJP president Gurdeep Singh to unite all factions to achieve good results in the future

Local bodies, Panchayat elections: Tough for new Poonch BJP president Gurdeep Singh to unite all factions to achieve good results in the future

POONCH TODAY NEWS

POONCH: Exclusively published by ‘POONCH TODAY’ time and again, the issue of the Poonch unit of the BJP, divided into various factions, remained in the limelight during the past few years. As a result, the saffron brigade failed to perform better by winning any of the assembly seats in the Poonch district, although the vote share increased drastically, with nearly second position on maximum seats.

Had the Poonch BJP worked as a single unit, would the output in the assembly elections have been different? The Union government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, fulfilled the years-old long-pending demand of the Pahari ethnic tribe by granting ST status, but the top brass of the BJP in the Poonch district failed to convince the voters to ensure the victory of the BJP candidates in all three constituencies, and it shows that the lack of understanding between different factions of the BJP proved heavy for the party. The BJP, despite granting ST status to the Pahari ethnic tribe, failed to achieve greater results, and the onus of this failure to win a seat lies on the top BJP leaders in the district, as their division was exploited by NC and other political parties. However, the Poonch unit of BJP has got its new young president, S. Gurdeep Singh Khalsa, and it’s an acid test for him to ensure coordination between different factions of the BJP to achieve better results in the likely panchayat and local body elections sooner than later. The Poonch unit of BJP has a strong chance of performing well in the local body elections in addition to being among the top contenders in the likely panchayat elections, but the only factor that is a worrying sign for the party in this border district is the lack of unity among the different groups. The saffron party has some big names, like former MLC Pardeep Sharma, who is a very powerful BJP leader in Poonch and took the party from 300 to nearly 12,000 votes; former NC MLC turned BJP leader Dr. Shenaz Ganai, who is considered among the highly educated leaders of Poonch district; former PDP MLC and Congress leader turned BJP leader Adv. Murtaza Khan; sitting DDC member Ch. Abdul Gani, who joined the BJP before the assembly elections after remaining an active NC and Congress leader; and DDC member Adv. Sohail Malik. Now it would be a challenging task for the new BJP president, S. Gurdeep Singh Khalsa, to ensure proper coordination between all the factions. Before S. Gurdeep Singh, Rajesh Raina (ex-councillor), who remained president for three years, did well for the party, as during his tenure, the party performed well to some extent in the assembly elections, but the inability of the party to win any of the assembly seats in the Poonch district remained a hot topic in the debate of top BJP J&K UT leadership. Questions were raised against the attitude of people from the Pahari ethnic tribe that despite getting their decades-old demand fulfilled, Paharis did not give enough votes to the BJP candidates; as a result, the BJP, which was eyeing nearly six to seven seats from Rajouri-Poonch districts, managed to get only one seat, although the party remained in the second position on maximum seats, and this is not an ordinary thing for the party in the Poonch-Rajouri region. Although Ajaz Jan, Ch Mohd Akram, and Javed Rana won their respective seats comfortably in the Poonch district, lack of unity among the BJP factions gave an easy passage to all the winning candidates. Reports available with the “POONCH TODAY” say that the traditional voters of BJP were not happy with the top brass of the BJP because they said that those party leaders who laid the strong foundation of the party in the Poonch district were sidelined while turncoat leaders from different political parties were allowed to join the BJP and were given important positions in the party, and this led to a negative impression among the traditional BJP voters. However, eyeing future elections, it’s an acid test for the Poonch unit of the BJP under Gurdeep Singh to perform well in the likely Panchayat and local body elections, and if the BJP shows its united face, then the party would be in a position to perform well in both elections. It would be interesting to see how the new young BJP president, S. Gurdeep Singh, who also has experience working in two major political parties of J&K, like NC and PDP, will sail the Poonch unit of the BJP to a sound victory in the future grassroots elections by uniting all divided factions of the party. Will Gurdeep Singh, as a Poonch unit BJP president, prove his mettle on the ground or not? Only time will tell.