POLITICS-Fall-Out of Yatra

Fall-Out of 'Yatra' ON the last leg of their journey several BJP leaders detached themselves from the main body of the Ekta Yatra, flew into Srinagar and there amidst tight security defied the hostile local populace and hoisted the national flag. Kashmiri loyalty was not won over by this act and the BJP leadership is no doubt aware that it is by now too late for such gestures to serve any meaningful purpose. Their original objective could therefore only have been petty defiance of Kashmiri militancy with a view to reinforcing the claim that the BJP is the sole upholder of national integrity. But what is of significance is not so much that fulfilment of this objective, admittedly by a truncated Yatra in a purely formal fashion, required the help of the security forces as that the government co-operated with the BJP's effort actively even as Congress functionaries in and out of government and including no less a person than the home minister decried the exercise as being counterproductive.