Srinagar: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge slammed the Bhartiya Janta Party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a press conference in Srinagar on Wednesday.
Kharge launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying that every construction or development initiative launched by the prime minister has either collapsed or leaked.
“The BJP has not done anything in the last 10 years. Wherever a bridge was inaugurated, that bridge collapsed. The Ram temple was inaugurated and now the roof is leaking. Wherever PM Modi inaugurates something, this has happened. People say his touch is pure, but I don't know what touch he has. Not only that, wherever there is a flood, there is no money for relief. This is the situation of the nation,” he added.
During the press conference, the Congress president also criticised the Prime Minister's international visits and said that he has been ignoring the conflict in Manipur.
“The Prime Minister is still travelling around the world but the house itself is on fire. There is a crisis in Manipur. We have our foreign policy, we are not denying that, but he should first look after his own country. I am not saying he should not go out, but I am saying that the problems of our country should be sorted out first. He has seen the whole world so far,” Kharge said.
The Congress president also said that the BJP has to answer to the people about the conversion of a state into a union territory and whether the move has benefited the people of the region.
“The financial problems or any other problems in the region should be understood by the people. The 'tamasha' that the BJP is doing is done all over the country. I also have some knowledge of politics. I have never seen in my 60 years of political life that a state has been made a union territory, have you heard of this before? So the BJP has to answer whether it has taken Jammu and Kashmir forward or backward. The BJP has said that the region is full of mobs, the mobs are security forces, half of them are wearing their suit, half of them are not wearing suit, so the BJP keeps saying that we have developed Kashmir a lot, but these are all false promises that they have made. But this is their habit, they have said this before too,” the Congress leader said.
“People think that since it is a state election it is not that important, but that is not the case. Parliamentary elections are as important as these Assembly elections,” he added.
In August 2019, the Government of India abrogated Article 370, effectively ending the special status of Jammu and Kashmir and reorganizing it into two Union Territories (UTs): Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
The Congress leader further condemned the BJP for not providing employment to the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
“When people asked about unemployment, they told people that they will give 200,000 jobs every year, 150,000 dollars to each household, all these are election jhumlas. Today they are also saying that they will give 500,000 jobs, but how will they do it? There are 100,000 jobs vacant in the government right now, so why haven't they given them yet? They don't have that answer. Not here, all over India there are 300,000 to 350,000 jobs vacant. There is unemployment here, and on top of that things are getting more expensive,” Kharge said.
Earlier, in a post on X, Kharge also said that Home Minister Amit Shah told only lies during his visit to Jammu and Kashmir. He claimed, “Amit Shah came to Jammu and Kashmir two or three times and told only lies.”
The Congress leader further said that sand mining is a problem in the region, alleging that the BJP has given contracts to people from outside the region and left the local population jobless. (ANI)