Voted for leadership one founded on courage, intellectual integrity and sense of values: Spokesperson AAP

The Constituent Assembly began its deliberations on December 9, 1946. On that historic day, envisioning the constitutional structure of the world’s newest and largest democracy, Sachchidananda Sinha, provisional Chairman of the Constituent Assembly, quoted in his inaugural address the words of an eminent American lawyer, jurist and politician, Joseph Story: 

“The structure has been erected by the architects of consummate skill and fidelity; its foundations are solid; its compartments are beautiful as well as useful; its arrangements are full of wisdom and order; and its defences are impregnable from without. It has been reared for immortality, if the work of man may justly aspire to such a title. It may nevertheless, perish in an hour by the folly, or corruption, or negligence of its only keepers, THE PEOPLE. Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit and intelligence of the citizens. They fall when the wise are banished from the public councils because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded because they flatter the people in order to betray them.”

As Jammu and Kashmir enjoyed its ‘first time in a decade election story’ in the 47 assembly seats of Kashmir and in the 43 seats in the neighbouring Hindu –majority Jammu region, voters decided not to reduce the noble processes of our Indian Constitution to the level of a carnival of claptrap, cowardice and chicanery. We the people decided to ostracize the average politician, who has the sordid amalgam of lack of intellect with lack of character and lack of knowledge. 

I believe that the voters in the first and the second phase of elections did appreciate that their ‘Union territory, which was a glorious State’ can achieve nothing without unleashing the energies of the common man. Democracy involves the cooperation of all perceptive citizens; nothing will ruin J&K if people themselves will undertake its safety and nothing can save it if they leave the safety in any hands but their own and with this vantage point, J&K will vote on the 1st of October 2024. 

Almost for a decade, when J&K stood on the escalator of bureaucratic anarchy and corruption – We, the people of J&K could not afford to stand frozen in disgust and dismay. We could not merely look upon the political developments in sorrow. The ill – informed are often confused about the three distinct concepts, which have wholly different connotations – equality, equality before law and equal opportunity. The voters of J&K do understand that equality before law is the very foundation of a republic. In the last one decade, it was painful to see lack of equal opportunity, which forms the basis of social justice. Alas! I do understand that equality is achieved only in the graveyard. 

When the people of J&K voted, they had firm conviction that it is not the ‘Constitution of India’, which failed the people of J&K, but it’s the bureaucratic leadership that shattered the dreams of the ‘Dogra land’. To shut our eyes to the gravity of the situation would only be to invite the forces of authoritarianism and we, the people of J&K thought that the peacock could not be replaced as the national bird by the ostrich. 

We chose to take a call on all the exploitation that we have been facing since the last one decade and the rhetoric of post Article 370 abrogation development in J&K: The story of a glorious State denigrated to a union territory; diplomats from almost fifteen countries arrive to observe the assembly election voting but the BJP did not have the courage to contest on all the 90 assembly seats; over 70% of the voters stayed away from the booths in Srinagar on the polling day of the 25th of September 2024; the crippling inflation; over ten lakh unemployed youth in J&K; 

a man named Dr. Manzoor Hasan from Shopian, with remarkable degrees makes it to the viral reel, when he is found selling dry fruit despite of his degrees due to lack of job opportunities; no new recruitment of teachers since the last ten years; fair and just recruitment for the youth in the garb of companies like APTECH; the mess of civic amenities; constant power cuts, where J&K has the capacity of generating 3500 MW power and generates only 600 MW; the toll plaza gift; the new alcohol and drug hub called Jammu; the exploitation of the landless and small farmers in the name of anti – encroachment steps; allottees of the custodian land left without any rehabilitation and compensation; the government job safe havens replaced by contractual jobs in almost all the departments of the LG administration; the unruly power expansion of the Hon’ble Lt. Governor, who will not allow any cabinet agenda to be passed without his assent as per the new amended law; the regularization of lakhs of daily wagers a distant dream; the false narrative of terrorism in control when Jammu is emerging as the new epicenter of terrorism in J&K; the acrimonious story of the smart meters and their bills; the scary property tax; the anganwadi workers and their brutal wage stagnation; the defunct primary health centres; the dilapidated school buildings of remote villages; the Kashmiri Pandits of Jagti and their shattered dreams; the uncanny story of the domicile certificates; the mystery of the Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine stampede tragedy of 2022 remains unsolved even after a high level committee formation and the reprimand of the Hon’ble High Court of J&K, when it questioned the J&K government that when it had no funds to pay to the contractors, why did it tender work in the name of infrastructure development?

Lest we forget the scams we witnessed in J&K in the last one-decade: The water crisis and the Jal Jeevan Mission mess; the Ayushman Bharat chaos; the mining mafia; fire and emergency scam; the sub inspector failed recruitment; the Junior Engineer exam tampering; the Financial Account Assistant exam disorder; the arms license scam and the Saubhagya Scheme, the new durbhagya. Yes, we the people did vote against the criminalization and commercialization of politics in J&K and the failure of the Central to provide moral leadership.

To my fellow residents of Jammu and Kashmir: we inherited a resplendent heritage and we have the wisdom to cherish it. Our innate potential is far, far greater than our actual achievement. A decade of administrative mess in the Union Territory – we gained experience and we can’t miss the pivotal meaning of good governance. In faith that our chosen representatives, our leaders whom we voted for, don’t allow the pious land of Jammu and Kashmir to be breeding ground of corruption, indiscipline, dishonesty and irresponsibility.

It was a deep statement when a famous writer, Somerset Maugham stated, “If you refuse to accept anything but the best, you often get it.” This is equally true of democracy. If people refuse to accept any but the best citizens as candidates, it would usher in the golden age of our republic. Politics will never be cleaner and our economic future will never be brighter, unless and until our citizens are willing to give of themselves to the land, which gave them birth. 

As I stood on the stage, witnessing a rustic crowd of almost twenty thousand people at the sports stadium in Doda, to support the Aam Aadmi Party’s candidates and welcome the Member of Parliament, Mr. Sanjay Singh; a new sun was rising in this J&K Assembly Election of 2024 – We, the people of Jammu and Kashmir did cast off the shackles of political feudalism and decided to vote against the unending game of power. As if people’s will was perceptibly bent by some HIGHER POWER/divinity to give birth to a new set of leaders.