The National Conference-Congress alliance in Jammu and Kashmir will collapse like a house of cards and face a humiliating defeat in the upcoming assembly elections, BJP general secretary Tarun Chugh has said. He also claimed the alliance had been rejected time and again by the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
“Even in the last Lok Sabha elections, while the Congress failed to open its account in Jammu and Kashmir, the National Conference led by the Abdullahs faced a crushing defeat,” Chugh, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Jammu and Kashmir in-charge, said in a statement in Chandigarh.
The three-phase assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir will begin on September 18. The other two rounds are scheduled for September 25 and October 1. The votes will be counted on October 4.
“In the past, the Abdullahs, Gandhis and the Muftis had formed the Gupkar alliance, which was outrightly rejected by the people in the DDC (District Development Council) elections. They formed the INDIA bloc in the Lok Sabha elections, yet they bit the dust,” he added.
Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and Congress president Malikarjun Kharge were in Jammu and Kashmir on a two-day visit on Wednesday and Thursday to hold consultations with party workers ahead of the assembly elections. National Conference leaders Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah have said, after meeting Rahul and Kharge, that the alliance is on track. The seat-sharing formula has not been released yet.
Ridiculing Gandhi’s visit, during which he also enjoyed an ice-cream at a Srinagar parlour, Chugh claimed, “It was more like an ice-cream trip to Lal Chowk where he (Gandhi) must have understood the pulse of the people.”
BJP leader and former Union Minister Smriti Irani called the alliance ‘unholy’ and asked the Congress party whether it supports its ally’s agenda of ‘breaking India’.
“An unholy alliance came together to pursue power. The Congress party and the National Conference came together and announced an alliance that has given rise to many questions,” Irani told a press conference at the party headquarters here.
She said the NC has “publicly” announced that it will reinstate Articles 370 and 35 A if voted to power and asked the Congress if it supports the Abdullah-led party’s “agenda of breaking India”.
Irani’s comments come after Union Home Minister and BJP leader Amit Shah posed 10 questions to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, demanding clarification on the grand old party’s stand on various issues as it allies with Farooq Abdullah’s National Conference.
“The Congress party, which has repeatedly risked the nation’s unity and security to satiate its greed for power, has once again exposed its ulterior motives by allying with the Abdullah family’s ‘National Conference’ in the Jammu and Kashmir elections,” Amit Shah said.