STATE TIMES NEWS
SRINAGAR: Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge on Thursday expressed his willingness to forge an alliance with other opposition parties for the upcoming Jammu and Kashmir Assembly polls and termed the ruling BJP’s promises to the people of the Union Territory “jumla”.
Kharge, along with Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, spoke to Congress leaders and workers here on Thursday to get feedback about the party’s grassroots-level preparations for the Assembly polls.
“This was the first meeting after the polls were announced…. We are here to seek the views of local leaders and workers for the polls and alliances. Under Rahul Gandhi’s leadership, we have taken the initiative to restore statehood for Jammu and Kashmir. We promise to work towards that,” Kharge told reporters here.
He said Gandhi is interested in forging a pre-poll alliance in the Union Territory.
“Rahul Gandhi is interested in contesting the polls unitedly with other parties in Jammu and Kashmir. We have had success as well. We have seen the results in the Lok Sabha polls. The INDIA bloc stopped a dictator from coming to power (at the Centre) with an absolute majority. This is the biggest success of the INDIA bloc,” Kharge said.
The Congress president said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is worried after the Lok Sabha polls as some of the legislations it was keen on passing in Parliament have either been withdrawn or sent to a Joint Parliamentary Committee.
He claimed that the BJP used to take advantage of its brute majority in Parliament to pass anti-people laws like those on the farming sector.
About Jammu and Kashmir, Kharge said not a single promise made by the BJP to the people of the region before elections has been fulfilled.
