Srinagar: The Leader of Opposition (LoP) and Congress leader, Rahul Gandhi launched a scathing attack on the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) and Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a massive election rally in Srinagar on Monday (September 23).
Gandhi targeted the saffron party for “snatching the democratic rights” of Jammu and Kashmir while demanding restoration of statehood in his first election rally in the valley after the three-phased assembly polls started last week following the directions of the apex court.
Congress supporters attending Rahul Gandhi’s rally in Srinagar on September 23, 2024. Photo: Ubaid Mukhtar
The rally comes at a time when the Congress is showing signs of revival in Jammu and Kashmir with several party leaders, who had fled to the former party leader Ghulam Nabi Azad’s nascent political outfit, either returning to the Congress fold in recent weeks and months, or waiting to do so after being disallowed from rejoining the grand old party.
Addressing a massive crowd of thousands of party supporters and workers who had gathered at a playground in Zainakot area of Srinagar’s Shalteng locality, Gandhi said that the BJP was spreading hatred in the country by pitting people of one religion or language against another for electoral dividends.
“Wherever the BJP opened its markets of hatred, the Congress party has responded with its shops of love. J&K has a history of defeating hatred with love. We will answer their hatred with love only. Before the Lok Sabha election, Modi used to flaunt his 56-inch chest. But (the performance of) India alliance has shattered his confidence. You see it on TV but I watch him closely in the Lok Sabha,” Gandhi said.
Recalling the carving out of the states of Chattisgarh, Jharkhand and Telangana from Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh respectively, Gandhi, while referring to the Article 370 move of the BJP-led Union government, said that it was for the first time in India’s history that a state was downgraded into a Union Territory.
“The democratic rights of people of J&K have been snatched after it was converted into a UT. Our party calls upon the BJP to restore your statehood. If they don’t, we will do it,” Gandhi said, evoking applause from the crowd which comprised thousands of youngsters, women and elderly men.
The Congress leader said that the lawmakers were empowered to take decisions on the issues of infrastructure development, health, education and others when J&K was a state.
Also read: The Modi-Shah Game in Kashmir Is to Split Opposition Vote and Pave Way for BJP to Form Government
“But now outsiders have been brought in who make these decisions. An outsider has been installed as the lieutenant governor,” he said, in a veiled reference to the recent amendment which has empowered the lieutenant governor to virtually run Jammu and Kashmir at the whims and desires of the Union government.
Gandhi also accused the BJP-led Union government of shutting down small factories across the country allegedly for the benefit of the industrialists.
“The government now works for few industrialists whose thousands of crores of loans have been waived off while poor people in the country continue to suffer the aftershocks of ill-conceived GST and demonetisation,” he said, while accusing Modi of evading real issues of unemployment and inflation in the ‘Mann Ki Baat’ programme.
Advertisement“No one listens to ‘Mann Ki Baat’ now. People are bored of it,” he added.
The Congress scion reiterated his party’s promise of filling up one lakh vacancies in various departments of Jammu and Kashmir administration if elected to power.
“We will provide Rs 3,500 as unemployment allowance and Rs 3,000 for poor women monthly. Besides, Rs 5 lakh loan will be provided to women leading self help groups. Every tehsil will have a mobile clinic and we will also set up a super speciality hospital in every district,” he said.
Despite blazing heat, thousands of Congress supporters, who had come from different parts of Kashmir, assembled at the Zainakote ground to attend Rahul Gandhi’s rally on September 23, 2024. Photo: Ubaid Mukhtar
Praising the new J&K Congress chief Tariq Hameed Karra, Gandhi appealed to the voters to elect him to J&K assembly.
“When people were leaving Congress, Karra saheb joined us. He is bold and isn’t afraid of anyone,” he said.
Earlier, Karra claimed that it was for the first time that such a huge gathering of political workers had assembled in Srinagar after the 1987 election, which is widely believed to have sparked off the armed insurgency in Kashmir.
“The BJP has divided India on the basis of temples and mosques. We will respond to their divisive agenda not with stones or sticks but with our vote. The days of tyranny are numbered. The winds of change are blowing across the country,” Karra said.
Despite blazing heat, thousands of Congress supporters, who had come from different parts of Kashmir, assembled at the Zainakote ground on Wednesday morning to attend their leader’s first election rally in the Valley where the second phase of assembly polls will be held on Wednesday, September 25.
“Kashmir is the motherland of Rahul Gandhi and we welcome him with open arms. There is a lot of inflation and unemployment in Kashmir. I am hopeful that he will address these issues once the Congress party comes to power,” Bashir Ahmad Wani, 65, a resident of Maloora, said.
Fokia Jan, a resident of Srinagar’s HMT locality, said that the BJP-led government has let down the people of J&K who have a lot of expectations from the Congress party now.
“Whatever promises Rahul Gandhi makes, he fulfils them. The BJP may have turned Srinagar into ‘Smart City’ but it is not a development for us. We want the government to provide jobs to the unemployed. That will be the real development,” Jan, a class 12 student who is voting for the first time in the assembly election, said.
