Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi has said that the Congress would put pressure on the Centre if it failed to restore Jammu and Kashmir's statehood after completion of the assembly elections.
Addressing an election rally in support of Congress candidate Shahnawaz Choudhary at Surankote in Poonch district, Rahul Gandhi said, ‘There have been instances when Union Territories were made states but never in the history of independent India was a state downgraded into a UT. Today your democratic right has been snatched. We will put enough pressure on them to restore your statehood’. In this context, he also cited the examples of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Jharkhand. He alleged that Jammu and Kashmir was being ruled by Delhi and decisions were made by non-locals.
Mr Gandhi also claimed that the Congress party has ‘psychologically defeated’ the Prime Minister Narendra after the Lok Sabha elections. Slamming the RSS-BJP, the Congress leader stated that they only believe in spreading hatred to divide people in the name of religion, caste, creed and region, and claimed the Congress had opened ‘shops of love in the markets of hate’ to counter them. Earlier, National Conference president and former chief minister Farooq Abdullah said, ‘This fight is against hatred being spread by the BJP and the RSS. They are trying to create a divide so that they can get power.’
The three-phase polls for the 90-member Jammu and Kashmir Assembly are currently underway. The first phase of voting was held on September 18, and the other two rounds will take place on September 25 and October 1 respectively. Counting of votes and results are on October 8.