Jammu: Senior Jammu and Kashmir Congress leader Raman Bhalla on Monday said his party would not be cowed down by BJP’s “rants” and would continue its fight against the “wrong policies” of the saffron party without compromising on people’s wishes and rights.
He accused the BJP of pushing the people in Jammu and Kashmir to the wall in the name of development and claimed that the party is working to implement its political agenda which is “divisive” and “anti-people”, and triggered unrest across the country including Jammu and Kashmir.
The remarks of Bhalla, a former minister, came a day after BJP national spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain launched a blistering attack on the Congress and said it is as good as dead.
“Our party will not be cowed down by BJP’s anti-Congress rants, rather it will further strengthen our resolve to fight for the people’s rights. People have realised as to what BJP has done since it assumed power at the Centre and erstwhile J&K state and how it pushed them to the wall for electoral gains,” the senior vice-president of J&K Congress said.
Addressing election rallies in support of party candidates in the R S Pura area of Jammu, he said the Congress believes in secularism and had always promoted equitable development.
Urging people to reject the “politics of hate”, Bhalla stressed that the Congress is the “guarantee” for development, peace and growth of common masses.
“The falsehood and deceitful politics by BJP was the source behind restlessness among the people, which has to be defeated in the larger interest of well-being of people and overall development of J&K,” he said.
He alleged that the people have been pushed to the wall in the name of development while the reality is that BJP is working on the implementation of its political agenda, which is “divisive and anti-people, responsible for the crisis and restlessness in J&K and across the country”.
Bhalla said it was the Congress which gave a three-tier Panchayat system to the nation, aiming at involving people in the process of their own development at the grassroots level.
“BJP government harmed the very foundation of the Panchayati Raj system by eroding its authority to serve their vested interests,” he claimed.
Appealing to people not to get swayed by “false propaganda” of the BJP and exercise their franchise against the “divisive, wrong and anti-people policies” of the BJP, Bhalla assured that his party would continue to work for the well-being of the people, despite the “concocted and false propaganda” unleashed by the BJP against it.
“Congress will continue its fight against the wrong policies of BJP and would not compromise on people’s wishes and rights,” he said, adding his party never compromised on people’s urges and aspirations for power.
In an apparent reference to the nullification of Article 370 and bifurcation of the erstwhile state into union territories last year, the Congress leader said the people of Jammu and Kashmir would never forget as to how BJP “victimised and punished” them under the garb of development, besides snatching their just rights in order to fulfill its agenda, based on “lies and deceit”.
