hitting out at the Union Health Minister and BJP National President JP Nada and the Shrine Board Management for the situation that emerged over the issue of Mata Vaishno Devi Medical Institute of Excellence, the Congress today sought answers from the BJP Govt. for their failure and the silence over the issue to allow the situation to further worsen in Jammu towards religious polarization.
BJP leadership and Union Health Minister should confess their basic fault and failure to take care of the religious sentiments and rights while granting necessary permission to the establishment of this institute, when there are already two such institutes including Acharya Shri Chander Ji Medical College and hospital and Mahant Bachittar Singh Engineering College functioning in Jammu, taking care of the respective religious sentiments and rights of youth.
Addressing a press conference here today after visiting the residence of Shri Kuldeep Sharma in order to honour him and his daughter Tania Sharma for a great gesture and message of harmony,JKPCC Working President Raman Bhalla, Chief Spokesperson Ravinder Sharma, Ex-MLC Ved Mahajan, flanked by PCC Secretary Sanjeev Panda and Adv. Bhavishya Sudan, said that today a team of the party visited lede by Shri Bhalla including Ex-Minister Yogesh Sawhney, Ravinder Sharma, Manmohan Singh, Sanjeev Panda Adv. Bhavishya Sudan, Balbir Balli, Pawan Sharma, Ashok Sharma and others visited the residence of Mr. Sharma at Krishna Nagar in order to salute their spirit & ideology based on the philosophy of love, affection and religious harmony and sending a loud message of “Mohabat Ki Dukan” in the atmosphere of hate and division being created by some communal forces. They termed him and his daughter as ambassadors of peace harmony in tune with the philosophy of LOP Shri Rahul Gandhi.
JKPCC President Shri Tariq Hameed Karra too spoke to Shri Kuldeep Sharma and his daughter Tania Sharmaand saluted their spirit and message on behalf of Shri Rahul Gandhi Ji, “ you and your daughter have done a great job by sendig out message of peace and religious harmony and opening “ Mohabat Ki Dukan” amidst the politics of hate in the country” Karra told them on phone..
Later in the press conferess at PCC HQ, Shri Raman Bhalla and Ravinder Sharma lashed out at BJP and its National President JP Nadda for maintaining silence over issue of Vaishno Devi Medical institute, forcing people to take to streets in the absence of any reasonable and just roadmap over the controversy which erupted due to the failure of Union Health Minister along with the Management of Shrine Board headed by the Lt. Governor Manoj Sinha. Who stopped them from respecting the religious sentiments and rights of youth in accordance with law, while granting necessary permission to the institute? They also questioned the commercialization of the activities of religious shrine Board which should be quite charitable and subsidized in the field of spreading education and Health Care besides carrying the religious and allied activities, out of the donations to he holy shrine.
Mr. Sharma cited the case of Sain Bawa Trust at Puttaparthi, spreading medical education and health care on Charitable basis. People of Jammu and Kashmir had expected best Health care from the Viashno Devi Board run hospital at Katra, on subsidized basis but people of Jammu have to rush to Amritsar, Ludhiana and Chandigarh to better health facilities.
They also came down heavily over those who are trying to communalize and polarize the society for vested political interests and questioned to what extent these divisive feelings will take the society. Tomorrow we shall find out religion of doctors in the Naryana Hospital and later in other places, then the religion and teachers I other educational institutions etc. Respecting religious sentiments and rights is alright as per spirit of constitution but creating hatred and division in the name of religion is a great disservice to the pluralistic society, they added, while asking BJP besides entre Govt. and LG administration and UT Govt to explain the reasons and find out a just and reasonable situation to the issue in accordance with the religious aspirations and sentiments as well as rule of law in order to check the vested interests from taking any advantage of he situation. They also asked the responsible people at the helm of affairs not to issue any provocative sentiments over the sensitive issue in order to add fuel to the fire or help the vested interests to further vitiate the atmosphere.