New Delhi : In a hard-hitting comment on Rahul Gandhi’s socalled “Bharat Jodo Yatra” entering Jammu & Kashmir, Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh said here Monday that it was the Congress leadership which had consistently blocked J&K’s integration with India for seven decades and is now ironically crying “Bharat Jodo”.
In an interview during a Talk Show hosted by national TV channel “Bharat 24”, Dr.Jitendra Singh said, the Congress memory may be short, but the public memory is not that short. He suggested that Rahul Gandhi and his colleagues should read the history and take a cue from the Ekta Yatra taken out by BJP in early 1992 which culminated in hoisting of tricolor at Lal Chowk in Srinagar and in which the present PM Narendra Modi had played an important role and was accompanied by senior leaders, including Murli Manohar Joshi. The intent of that Yatra was to send out a message across the country and also internationally that nationalist forces in India would never allow J&K to be separated from India in spite of the divisive politics of the Congress party coupled with machinations of Pakistan.
The BJP Yatra at that time, recalled Dr.Jitendra Singh, was vehemently opposed by the ruling Congress Party and its allies who were the vote bank beneficiaries of keeping the integration of J&K with India under question mark. The credit goes to PM Narendra Modi for having abrogated Article 370 and adopting a decisive approach of zero tolerance against militancy, as a result of which today there is complete mainstreaming of J&K, he said.
He said Congress party’s so-called Bharat Jodo Yatra only betrays their discomfiture with normalcy having returned to J&K because Congress and its allies have developed a vested interest in the continuation of militancy and unrest so that the voting percentage is low and they continue to thrive by getting elected, generation after generation, to sustain their dynasty rule. He said, in the garb of Bharat Jodo Yatra, Congress is actually trying to create an element of division or “Bharat Todho” in J&K for its vested political interest.
Dr.Jitendra Singh recalled that in 1952, the Delhi Agreement by the Nehru Government had institutionalised separatism and lack of full integration of J&K with India and today Nehru’s great grandson is trying to revive a similar sentiment in a bid to seek his political revival.
The Congress and its allies, during their rule, tactically supported militancy, separatism, nepotism and corruption while economic development came to a standstill, said Dr.Jitendra Singh and gave credit to PM Modi for having brought J&K back on the track. The stakes are too high and therefore, ill-conceived or mischievous misadventures of Rahul Gandhi and his colleagues can no longer be afforded.
Dr.Jitendra Singh expressed confidence that the common man walking in the streets of Srinagar wants to be a part of the India journey led by PM Modi and after having come out of a nightmare of three decades he is not ready to be thrown back into the same mayhem of violence and destruction.
Time will vindicate, said Dr.Jitendra Singh, that the Congress Party’s Bharat Jodo Yatra will meet its waterloo in J&K and end up in “Congress Todho” by further disintegrating and finishing off the last remnants of this outlived dynastic vestige.
