Video: https://youtu.be/rUUe7P086AI
By Bunty Mahajan
Jammu: BJP president in the Union Territory, Ravinder Raina along with Jammu-Poonch Lok Sabha MP Jugal Kishore Sharma had to face an embarrassing situation at Sunderbani on Monday as local people stopped their vehicle and raised slogans like “shame – shame’’ in protest against their having ignored their electorate even during their current pandemic situation.
Party’s general secretary and former legislator Vibodh Gupta was also accompanying them at that time. All the three leaders had gone to Sunderbani to take stock of the COVID Care facilities at government run hospital there.
Significantly, Sunderbani happens to be the native sub division of BJP president and it is considered to be a BJP bastion.
“We gave you votes in plenty, but our condition has not changed,’’ a local businessman Sanjeev Gupta told BJP president Ravinder Raina. Before the BJP leader could say something, he was greeted with slogans “Shame, Shame’’.
Thereafter, Sanjeev Gupta turned to BJP MP Jugal Kishore Sharma saying “MP Sahib, you have won from the area over five years ago and you should have taken care of the people’’. “We people are very depressed as many of us have nothing to eat at home,’’ he said in reference to the Corona lockdown going on for the last three weeks.
“Do not ignore people,’’ he told the visiting BJP leaders. When a small trader opens his shutter for a while to sell something worth Rs 100 only as his children are hungry at home, cops come and register FIR, besides imposing fine worth Rs 5,000 on him, he pointed out.
“What wrong these traders have done,’’ he asked, adding “have they voted for you’’ during the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections to “get FIRs registered against them’’.
During the previous lockdown when our shops were not opening, we rang up every BJP leader but no one except Sham Lal Sharma responded, he said.
Sensing the mood of the people, Raina asked the protestors to meet them at Sunderbani hospital where they were going to take stock of the Covid care facilities.