Jammu, October 06: Notwithstanding the continuous ruckus in the state legislature over beef ban and other usual controversial issues the young leadership of Jammu is slowly emerging and making its mark in the House to make it a rally vibrant democracy where issues concerning public are also discussed.
While we have been arguing that Jammu lacks leadership and needs a young and vibrant leader to take on the mantle of Jammu issues some of the young legislators of Jammu have initiated the process of making their mark in the state legislators bringing a sigh of relief to leaderless Jammuites.
Even though Jammu is far away from the real leaders as yet, the emergence of young legislators is a silver lining on the clouds thus giving an effective reply to the authoritarian attitude of the other dominating class of politicians.
The fiery arguments of Ravinder Raina on beef ban, categorical reply of his lineage by Speaker Kavinder Gupta and most recently taking on the mighty bureaucracy by well informed and energetic Ramnagar MLA RS Pathania is an encouraging trend emerging among the new leaders of Jammu.
However what needs to be done is to consolidate the young leadership into an effective tool to fight collectively for the rights of Jammuites irrespective of the party affiliations so that Jammu does not have to bear the brunt of discrimination any more.
Earlier there were Balwant Singh Mankotia, Ashwani Sharma, Jugal Kishore Sharma, who were very vocal in the assembly while Sham Lal Sharma had also earned some respect from Jammuites for his stand on Jammuites rights.
Since now the leadership has seen a complete change we see people like RS Pathania, Ravinder Raina, Vibodh Gupta, Surender Amabardar who are quite vocal and giving befitting reply to the people who oppose anything related to Jammu.
Among ministers while Lal Singh is an old war horse, the emergence of Priya Sethi as an assertive minister in front of a non cooperative bureaucracy is worth appreciation from Jammu point of view.
The clashes notwithstanding the vibrant debate over issues concerning the state and different regions signals a good omen for a vibrant democracy in the state as it is through debates that a democracy flourishes in any country.
In Jammu And Kashmir State the Jammu region has always felt a step child of Kashmir and alleged gross discrimination which resulted in BJP sweeping the current assembly elections giving some hopes to Jammuites that their grievances would be listened now.
However merely occupying power chairs is not enough and we need some young and bold legislators who can not only argue well, plead well but also fight well in the assembly debates and luckily it seems that new generation of leadership is emerging in Jammu now.
Jammu which was in infancy of politics is slowly reaching its adolescent age which is evident from the open clashes inside the assembly and it would need some more time to reach the mature stage where Jammu leaders are taken seriously and listened carefully which is the only way to remove the tag of discrimination from Jammu.