BJP scheme ropes in 500 youth in Valley

‘Vistaraks’ of the party highlight how terrorism is blocking development

Away from political wranglings and television debates over the Kashmir issue, more than 500 Muslims have enrolled with the BJP in Jammu and Kashmir. They have been highlighting the saffron party’s vision of “people centric” central schemes and helping it spread its footprints in the region under the party’s Deen Dayal Upadhyay Vistarak Scheme.

But what has brought cheers in the saffron camp is that for the first time, nearly 320 of these “local” volunteers, including women, are from Kashmir alone, a region where the BJP failed to get even a single Assembly seat in the last elections. The BJP is running its first government in the state with senior partner PDP.

These vistaraks have been knocking at the doors of residents, including in areas like Anantnag, which have been witnessing unrest and stone-pelting incidents and are considered as the strongholds of separatists. There they are highlighting the “facts” regarding the BJP, asking them not to be swayed by the Opposition and the separatists’ propaganda against the party and the Central government. They tell them how since day one, the Narendra -Modi government had been working hard to bring the state’s development index at par with other states.

An upbeat BJP is also planning to hold its working-committee meeting for the first time in Srinagar. It is also planning to prepare a district-wise report on how many people in the state have benefited from the Central schemes. A total of 1,650 vistaraks have enrolled with the BJP in the state.

They also make youths and residents aware of the anti-India propaganda of Pakistan-sponsored separatists and how “terrorism is being used as a tool” to keep the region underdeveloped, while the “separatists are flourishing.”

The response to its “vistarak” scheme in the Valley is being seen as a “good sign” by the BJP as well as the government.

— PTI The Army takes position outside a house where militants were hiding during an encounter, in which top three Hizbul Mujahideen Commanders and two Army soldiers were killed, at Awneera in Shopian district of south Kashmir on Sunday.