5 ministers to begin Valley visits from today
SRINAGAR: Out of 36 Union ministers, who are currently on a visit to Jammu and Kashmir, only five will travel to three districts of Kashmir from Tuesday as part of Centre’s outreach programme after the nullification of Article 370, officials said.
For four days, the five ministers — communications, electronics & information technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, HRD minister Ramesh Pokhriyal, minority affairs minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, minister of state for defence Shripad Naik and minister of state for home affairs G Kishan Reddy — will attend eight government and public events, the officials said.
Most of these programmes, according to the BJP office bearers, are government programmes to make people of the Centre’s developmental schemes, initiated after revocation of Article 370 and bifurcation of the state into Union territories.
On Tuesday, Naqvi will visit Faqir Gujri village in Dara panchayat on the outskirts of Srinagar. He will lay the foundation stone for a high school in Dara and a water conservation project at Sarband in the Harwan area.
MOS Reddy will be in central Kashmir’s Ganderbal district on a two-day visit starting Wednesday. On Friday, he will chair a function at Police Training College in Ganderbal.
On a two-day visit starting Thursday, Prasad will attend a function at Dak Banglow in Baramulla and also inaugurate a Sports Complex there.
Union minister Naik will attend a function at Sher-i-kashmir International Conference Centre, Srinagar, on Thursday.
Pokhriyal will travel to Harwan and attend a public meeting at the city centre on Friday.
Meanwhile, leaders of different political parties termed these visits “an optics to hide the failure of the Centre”.
J&K Congress president Ghulam Ahmad Mir said, “The ministers are not bringing any developmental projects instead they are inaugurating old projects on which erstwhile state funds were utilised.”
National Conference leader, and MP from Anantnag, Hasnain
Masoodi called the visit a photo op to give an “impression that developmental projects have started” in Kashmir.
Peoples Democratic Party spokesman Tahir Sayeed said, “Our state was better developed than states which are being ruled by BJP for more than a decade now. They are not getting any big projects to J&K but inaugurating the old projects...”
BJP state spokesman Altaf Thakur said that this is for the first time in last 70 years when Union Ministers are visiting farflung areas to solve the problems of common masses. “It became only possible when Article 370 was removed and J&K stated getting benifits of all central schemes.”
(With inputs from PTI)