Mendhar voters not satisfied with sitting Cong MP
Shariq Majeed
Tribune News Service

Mendhar (Poonch), April 5
The Congress may vouch to fight for the rights of “Aam Aadmi”, but the common masses here in this frontier tehsil say that the sitting Congress Member of Parliament (MP) did not visit them once to know about their fate and they will vote against him for letting them down and non-performing.

The other major players in fray from the Jammu-Poonch parliamentary segment are former convenor of Shri Amarnath Yatra Sangharsh Samiti and BJP’s candidate Leela Karan Sharma, who is seeking to cash in on religious sentiments flared up by Amarnath Land Agitation, and PDP’s Tarlok Singh Bajwa.

Irked by the alleged “non-performance” of sitting Congress MP Madan Lal Sharma, who is seeking re-election from the Jammu-Poonch parliamentary seat of which this area is a part, residents say that not speaking of spending any funds under the MP fund in this area, the MP didn’t bother to visit them even once during his tenure of five years.

The voters here numbering more than 77,000 added that even as people in this frontier tehsil continue to suffer due to lack of development, the MP allegedly did nothing to highlight their pain and agony.

“Our area is quite underdeveloped. For decades together we have been waiting for a representative who not only feels our sufferings but also gets money for development of our area. We don’t have proper infrastructure in schools, hospitals. In this entire town, there are no bathrooms for visitors nor there is any parking facility here,” says Chander Mohan Sharma, a photographer who runs his shop in Muhalla Saraf here.

Another resident of Balakote block (which enjoyed tehsil status before 1965) near here, Muhammad Amin, a farmer, says “Even as our MP did nothing good to us and didn’t spend even a single penny of his MP fund here, we will vote in this parliamentary elections just to teach him a lesson for non-performing. For more than four decades we have been demanding Tehsil status back for Balakote and basic amenities like safe drinking water, better roads.

But there is no one to listen to our demands”.

Mendhar tehsil is one of the largest tehsil of border district Poonch having about 78,000 voters out of which there are more than 39,000 male and 38,830 females.

This tehsil has remained highly militant infested area and continues to report militant activity. People here are now looking for development, better amenities and implementation of centrally sponsored schemes like National Rural Employment Guarantee and execution of schemes under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana.