Jammu: BJP on Friday appealed to the family members of Jammu and Kashmir’s moderate separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani to join the political mainstream and urged them to celebrate the democracy.
“Some people issued poll boycott call but that was rejected by the people of the state. When Syed Ali Geelani was busy issuing boycott call, his own neighbor joined BJP,” BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav said while addressing a party function here.
Madhav appealed to the family members of Geelani to join the political mainstream.
“I appeal to his (Geelani’s) family members to join political mainstream and celebrate democracy and stand in the same queue in which Omar Abdullah, Narendra Modi are standing,” he said.
He said people of Jammu and Kashmir have seen a ray of hope in the new Central government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and they want to give BJP a chance to govern the state.
While referring to the party’s stand on Article 370, Madhav, without naming it, said the party has not given up its agenda, but would raise it at an appropriate time and at an appropriate platform.
“We are not apologetic, we have not given up on an issue.
They will be taken at an appropriate time and appropriate platform,” Madhav said.
He said that the Prime Minister wants to develop the state of Jammu and Kashmir so that it becomes the number one tourist destination in Asia.
While attacking the Congress, he said the party has no agenda as it has now raised the issue of a Hindu chief minister for the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
“They don’t have an agenda now and they are talking about a Hindu chief minister, but we say let the elected representatives of the state elect the chief minister. Can the PDP and the NC also say that they would allow the legislatures to elect a chief minister from outside the family,” Madhav said. .
Madhav said that “the two ruling families in the state have been looting the state” and the people now need to know where the funds meant for the development of the state have gone.
Later talking to reporters, Madhav expressed hope that his party would form the next government in the state.
When asked about the incident in which the doctors in Chhattisgarh discarding the uniform belonging of the martyred CRPF personnel who lost their lives in a Naxal attack in Sukma, Madhav said, “This is very unfortunate incident and the state government is already looking into it and action would be taken against whosoever is found guilty.”
Commenting on the ongoing logjam in Parliament over the controversial statement of Union Minister Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Madhav said, “she herself has apologised in Parliament and the PM has also spoken on the issue, now as the Congress has a dearth of real issues so it’s creating logjam on such issues.”
Taking a jibe at ongoing protest by Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, Madhav said, “He has nothing to do, hence the protest.”
He said the people of the country have “discarded” Congress as they were fed up with decades of corruption and misrule in the country.
“Today the situation is that they (Congress) don’t have representation in Lok Sabha from 17 states of the country. The situation is that we (BJP) have to take measures to introduce some legislature in Parliament to get them the status of the Opposition party in the Lok Sabha,” Madhav said.
Attacking the statement of senior Congress leader and the Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad in which the latter had termed the huge turnout of the voters as a rejection to the policies of BJP, Madhav said, “Azad is daydreaming.” PTI
