National Conference’s sudden “Love for Merit” is pure politics: BJP

JAMMU: In a hard-hitting response to National Conference (NC) and Omar Abdullah’s attempt to cloak a one-sided and questionable admission process at SMVD Medical College, Kakrayal behind the rhetoric of “merit”, former MLC and BJP spokesperson Girdhari Lal Raina said the NC should first look honestly at its own legacy. “You cannot eat the cake and have it too,” he remarked.

GL Raina accused the NC and other Kashmir-centric parties of consistent double standards and a long-drawn design to deprive Jammu region and non-Muslim minorities of their rightful space as equal, dignified and law-abiding citizens of the Union Territory. The current controversy, he said, is only the latest reflection of a mindset that has historically denied minorities space even in institutions created, funded, and nurtured by them.

NC’s merit argument exposed by its own history

Calling out the NC’s selective outrage, Raina reminded that the same party never applied the concept of merit when it came to Kashmiri Pandits and other minorities in Kashmir. This systematic exclusion led to marginalisation, discrimination, and eventually the ethnic cleansing of 1989–90.

He asked pointedly: “Isn’t it strange that successive J&K governments under NC rule found no ‘meritorious’ Hindu candidate fit to serve as Vice Chancellor of Kashmir University — while the same community produced Vice Chancellors in premier institutions across the country, including JNU?”

Raina highlighted how appointments, promotions, and technical positions were deliberately blocked for qualified minority candidates, while “undesirable and incompetent individuals from the majority community were pushed into jobs.” It virtually became state policy to ignore qualified Kashmiri Pandits and “wait until a Muslim applicant became available or eligible.”

NC cannot erase judicial record

Recalling the landmark Triloki Nath Tiku vs State of J&K case, Raina said Omar Abdullah should not forget that even the Supreme Court had to step in. The Court acknowledged that promotions in J&K were being distributed on communal lines, ignoring merit — the very merit NC is now pretending to champion.

The selective secularism of NC

Raina further reminded NC how an earlier “liberal and secular” J&K government had once issued an order capping admissions of Hindu boys to no more than 30% in academic colleges — let alone professional institutions. “This alone exposes the hypocrisy of lecturing others on fairness,” he said. He further asked how was it possible for sportspersons from Jammu region to shine as stars at national and international level only after 2019?

On SMVD College and communal spin

Rejecting the NC’s communal twist to the SMVD Medical College issue, Raina said: “The Chief Minister must check facts before expressing sectarian emotions. There are more than sufficient Muslim employees, including doctors, working in SMVD University and the Shrine Board.”

If true secularism was needed anywhere, he said, it was in institutions like the Waqf Board, where mismanagement and appeasement politics have repeatedly created friction — including the recent desecration of the National Emblem at Hazratbal, despite government funding.

GL Raina emphasised that the Hindu community — a minority in J&K — deserves respect, dignity, and protection of its aspirations, not bullying and majoritarian authoritarianism. He urged the NC leadership to stop weaponising “merit” for political gain and to correct the deep historical injustices it presided over, instead of repeating them under new slogans.