BJP is in desperate need to shore up its support. More so, in Uttar Pradesh, where the chances of the BJP returning to power don’t look all that bright and where the BJP needs a victory to stay in the reckoning in 2024 general elections.
As important as it is to acknowledge that politics has very little room in the current situation, there is also a lack of will on the part of political parties to engage in politics.
In hindsight, there was little about Amit Shah’s three-day J&K stay that could be termed as a big-bang policy or a political announcement.
Jammu and Kashmir reported on Tuesday 84 fresh cases of novel coronavirus while 97 more patients recovered from the deadly infection in the Union Territory during the last 24 hours.
Desertions of the leaders from the PDP and now the National Conference isn’t just about party-hopping in search of better career prospects but about a political makeover of Kashmir.
It would be erroneous to believe that there is a rethink taking place in Jammu about the revocation of Article 370. The reasons are the divergent interests and a political culture that defines itself in adversarial terms towards Kashmir.
What made Geelani a bigger challenge for New Delhi among all Kashmiri separatists was not his hawkish politics, not even his rehearsed line on Kashmir dispute, or his refusal to hold dialogue with Delhi but his capacity to harness the simmering anger in the Valley and spin it into a large-scale popular revolt
There is certainly a feeling of deja vu. Will the situation in Kashmir that followed the exit of the Soviet Union from Afghanistan in 1989 and its subsequent break-up repeat itself, this time compounded by the rise of China as the global power?
What form this alienation takes place in the months or years ahead as New Delhi goes about easing the lockdown is difficult to tell. But one thing is sure, it would be long before Kashmir even starts coming to terms with the loss.
Pakistan is no longer bolstered by the strategic depth of Afghanistan or leveraged by an all-encompassing militant struggle in Kashmir. This has brought in a considerable inequality between the parties which no amount of rhetoric in Kashmir and Islamabad could hide
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