Lok Sabha 2024: If Jitendra Singh Wins in Jammu, the Only Reason Would Be Modi

Many youngsters in Udhampur are seriously contemplating voting for the Congress candidate Chaudhary Lal Singh.

Jitendra Singh, file photo. 

(Photo: PTI)

(This is the 17th in a series of insightful reports from the ground, titled The Race From India to Bharat. The author travels all across India as 960 million voters get ready to celebrate the largest festival of democracy in the world: the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. What do ordinary Indians think and feel about the past, present, and future of India? Are they convinced that the old fault lines are healing?)

(Read part one here, part two here, part three here, part four here, part five here, part six here, part seven here, part eight here, part nine here, part 10 here, part 11 here, part 12 here, part 13 here, part 14 here, part 15 here, and part 16 here.)

Rajbagh is a typical bustling small town in Kathua district that you see as you drive from Pathankot towards Jammu. Construction work is happening at a furious pace for a new expressway with diversions every few kilometres. A large number of shops and small business establishments in Rajbagh will disappear when the expressway is completed.

Gurinder Singh, who owns a mobile phone shop on the highway, says business is not bad. His family was forced to migrate from the Punjab province, which eventually became part of Pakistan in 1947, and he still holds on to the agricultural land that was given to his family as compensation back then.

Soft-spoken and measured, the young Sikh gentleman doesn’t have an iota of abrasiveness in him. Yet he sounds bitter when talking about the BJP’s Lok Sabha candidate from Udhampur — Jitendra Singh, who is also a minister in the Prime Minister’s Office in the current Narendra Modi government.

Hundreds of shopkeepers, like Gurjinder, will lose their shops to the expressway. They have sent half a dozen petitions to Jitendra Singh for relief, relocation and rehabilitation. According to Gurinder, Jitendra Singh is so arrogant that not only has he ignored their pleas but also refused to meet them. Gurinder seems to be well aware of what’s happening with infrastructure projects in India.

“There have been so many instances where Nitin Gadkari and his staff have helped with relief and relocation when shops were closed due to new highways in so many parts of India. All we expected was for our MP to forward our plea to Gadkari ji. I am sure Gadkari ji would have helped. But our MP has been least bothered”, says Gurjinder.

Many youngsters, including Gurjinder, have voted twice for Jitendra Singh in 2014 and 2019. They are now seriously contemplating voting for the Congress candidate Chaudhary Lal Singh who has won the seat twice in 2004 and 2009. Lal Singh, a home-grown grassroots veteran, was a minister in the PDP-BJP government in J&K and was apparently thrown out of the BJP when he took a public stand in support of the convicted gang rapists of a 9-year-old girl in Kathua.

Gurinder is not an anecdotal and isolated case. The Amar Singh club is a typically old-world elegant place in Jammu that went into a tizzy when the author landed up there one evening wearing a blazing red kurta and white pyjamas. Only formals were permitted. The hosts — a well-known doctor, a corporate professional and a retired bureaucrat managed to persuade the manager to make an exception for the “guest from Delhi”. All three are staunch BJP supporters and proud Dogras who are wary of Kashmir valley-based politicians once again treating Jammu like a stepchild once full statehood is restored and voters elect a new government.

Quite obviously, they want the BJP to win this Lok Sabha election. But even they admit that Jitendra Singh is finding the going tough. According to them, not only is Lal Singh a very well-known name and face in the Udhampur constituency but is also perceived as a champion of “Hindu” rights against Muslim “majoritarian” regimes of J&K.

Grudgingly, they admit off the record that Jitendra Singh is not a mass leader and has also not helped his cause by maintaining a distance from the locals. There is no doubt Dr Singh must have done his bit as an MP to keep in touch with his voters. But then, who can fight perceptions?

The sleepy receptionist at the hotel in Jammu doesn’t look very happy as the author checks out of the hotel at 6 AM. The entire hotel is deadly quiet. But he smiles when he spots the “press” badge hanging on the author and suddenly starts talking. He says he is from Udhampur and has never met Jitendra Singh though his family is a committed Congress voting family that flipped after 26/11 in 2008.

According to him, it would have been better if Dr Singh had paid more attention to the “Hindu” concerns. He thinks the Prime Minister’s Office, where Dr Singh is a minister, has been so focused on the Kashmir valley after the abrogation of Article 370 that Jammu remains neglected.

As the author prepared to leave, the receptionist enquired about their stay. To this, the author replied with NCR which is officially Uttar Pradesh, he perked up visibly and said, “Yogi Adityanath is coming here today to campaign for Dr Singh. I have heard Modi ji is also coming here after some time. Maybe that will save Jitendra Singh”.

(Sutanu Guru is the Executive Director of the CVoter Foundation. This is an opinion article and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)