New Delhi: The BJP today lashed out at the Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi for his criticism of the Narendra Modi government for attacks on Amarnath Yatra and the continuous militancy-related strikes in Jammu and Kashmir. “If any single individual or a family is to be blamed for the Jammu and Kashmir fiasco it is Pt Jawaharlal Nehru,” BJP leader and New Delhi MP Meenakshi Lekhi told reporters here. Instead of making allegations, she said, the Congress leader would do well to read the “history” of his family and great grand father.
“He (Rahul Gandhi) should have read the history of his great grand father (Nehru) and his family,” she said and even suggested that radicalisation in Jammu and Kashmir had originally started in 1990. “If any body is singularly responsible for the mess we are watching in Jammu and Kashmir, it is Nehru family,” she said. “Not only in 1947……even post that – repeatedly if one person can be blamed, it is Nehru himself. And after him…. the policies that Congress followed,” Ms Lekhi said.
She further went onto say that the Congress vice-president would do well – “to get the correct briefing on Kashmir from his staff”. Earlier, Mr Gandhi alleged that the “short-term political gain” for Prime Minister Narendra Modi from the alliance between the BJP and the PDP has cost the country massively. He also said that Prime Minister’s policies have created space for terrorists in the state.
Countering him, Ms Lekhi said one should not be talking about ‘benefits’ over any incident of violence. In this context, she sought to remind the Congress of 1984 anti-Sikh carnage in Delhi and other parts of the country and said, “Perhaps they (the Congress party) who incited 1984 riots can know this better”.
“If Rahul Gandhi reads the history of his own family, he will stop making such allegations,” the BJP lawmaker from New Delhi said. To a question, she said efforts made by the BJP to bring in peace and to end political violence in the Left Front-rule Kerala has failed. “The Left leaders are fundamentalists to the core and only portray a liberal outer surface.
They change these identities quite frequently,” she alleged. The BJP leader denied that Opposition voice was being muzzled in the country and said, instead of Opposition voice getting muzzled, today it is the case of Opposition leaders “not talking sense”. “The kinds of tweets and remarks from leaders like Rahul Gandhi, Sandeep Dikshit ….It is a question of opposition voices not talking sense,” she said.
She condemned the attack on a journalist at a Janata Dal (United) press conference in Bihar and said “the freedom of speech” must be understood and practiced at all levels. “If the press is not allowed to ask you a question, who else will ask ?” Ms Lekhi said.
