News Desk
The two parliamentary constituencies, Muzaffarnagar and Gazipur, in the country’s largest populated state, Uttar Pradesh, maybe 1000 kilometers apart, but these constituencies have a Kashmir connection in the past and present. Veteran Kashmiri politician Late Mufti Muhammad Sayeed represented the Muzaffarnagar constituency in the Indian Parliament (1989-90), while seasoned politician Manoj Sinha, who earlier represented Gazipur in Parliament, has been serving as the long-term Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir UT since 2020.
A couple of days ago, there were rumors that the incumbent Lieutenant Governor of J&K, Manoj Sinha, was stepping down from his post to contest the elections in his home constituency Gazipur. However, officials quickly dispelled the rumor, and the Bhartiya Janata Party announced Paras Nath Rai as its candidate the very next day.
As the deadline for the nomination of candidates for the 2024 general Lok Sabha elections in Kashmir division approaches and the BJP, which hardly has a familiar face in its pocket, is yet to announce its candidates, the news of LG Sinha’s resignation sparked a debate in Jammu and Kashmir political circles expressing a desire for Manoj Sinha to contest the general elections in the region he has been administering for the last four years.
None of the governors in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir have achieved much prominence among the public in Jammu and Kashmir, except Jagmohan Malhotra in the 1990s, however, for different reasons. Sinha, a seasoned politician, has played an important role in Jammu and Kashmir since he assumed office on August 07, 2020, after the abolition of Article 370.
In all these years, Sinha has let his work rather than his words speak for him. A politician from Ghazipur in eastern Uttar Pradesh, Sinha was previously Minister of State for Communications and Minister of State for Railways. He was widely tipped as a candidate for the post of Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh in 2017 but was replaced by Yogi Adityanath at the last minute.
In Jammu and Kashmir, he has tackled systemic inequalities and advocated for marginalized communities. He has successfully held national and international events like the G20 conference, kept the doors of the Raj Bhawan open for all shades and walks of life to listen to concerns and feedback, reached out to people personally even in the interiors of Srinagar city, and spearheaded the movement to attract more tourists. Making the men and machines of the government accountable has resulted in earning him a reputation as a beacon of hope and inspiration among the masses.
Indeed, there is a big difference between the present political scene and the political scenario of V.P. Singh’s Janata Dal politics supported by the BJP in 1989, during which Mufti marked electoral victory in Uttar Pradesh and rose to the post of Home Minister. But the Indian Constitution allows any citizen of India to try his luck with the electorate of any place in the country, especially at the place of the voter’s choice.
