Jammu: The Jammu and Kashmir unit of the Congress launched a counter attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday and said the BJP is a “master at providing lip service” and its “empty rhetoric” will not work in the upcoming Assembly polls in the Union Territory.
The opposition party also claimed that the BJP is fast losing ground in Jammu and the people here are not happy with the LG’s administration.
“Enough of the prime minister’s bullying…. The BJP is a master at providing lip service, which has been aptly witnessed in the last 10 years throughout the country, including in Jammu and Kashmir,” Raman Bhalla, the working president of the Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee (JKPCC), said.
Bhalla, a former minister who is contesting the upcoming polls from the R S Pura-Jammu South Assembly seat, underscored the importance of voting sensibly and for those who will keep the rights and dignity of the voters at the centre of their agenda.
Reacting to Modi’s scathing attack on his party, along with the National Conference (NC) and People’s Democratic Party (PDP), from a poll rally in Doda district earlier in the day, Bhalla said the old “drama and empty rhetoric” will not work in this election.
“We should listen to everyone’s speeches, so that we can differentiate between those who are telling the truth and those who are lying. After 10 years of big promises, speeches and lies, the country is facing an unprecedented unemployment and inflation crisis,” he told a gathering of Congress workers and supporters.
Bhalla said a prime minister needs to listen to the people but “we are going through a very strange time as nowadays, if people speak up for their rights, they are put in jail”.
He cautioned people against the “tempting speeches” of political parties, which he said have appeared on the scene once again after “failing on all fronts”.
Claiming that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is losing ground rapidly, he said the people of Jammu are not happy with the loss of statehood and jobs, the rule of the bureaucracy and for allowing outsiders to purchase land and invest in large projects here.
“Everyone is unhappy with the Lieutenant Governor’s administration, which is ignorant, high-handed and inaccessible,” he said.
Bhalla said the Congress is well prepared for the Assembly polls and asserted that the grand old party will emerge victorious as the people of Jammu have made up their mind to “teach a lesson” to the BJP.
“There is strong resentment among the people against the BJP government as it has not fulfilled its promises made at the time of the last Assembly polls,” he said, claiming that the saffron party failed to represent the sentiments of the people here and deliver the promises it had made to the electorate, and has been merely indulging in rhetoric to emotionally charge the people for political interests.
“The 10 years of the BJP’s rule have been of mismanagement, immense despair and agony, and Jammu and Kashmir today stands at a stage where the common people are suffering from the wounds inflicted by the government,” he said.
