New Delhi : The Congress on Thursday accused the Centre and the erstwhile BJP-PDP government in Jammu and Kashmir of “spoiling” the atmosphere in the state and held them responsible for the current situation there, where people are “afraid” to cast their vote.
The Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Ghulam Nabi Azad, who hails from the state, said this was not the first time that voter turnout in municipal polls in the Kashmir Valley has been low compared to that in the Jammu region.
Senior party leader Ambika Soni alleged that the state and central governments are squarely responsible for the current situation and for bringing the state to a level where the “fear of bullet forced people not to cast their vote”.
The two leaders claimed the previous Congress-National Conference government in Jammu and Kashmir had helped normalise the situation and people had been coming out in large numbers to exercise their franchise.
But the erstwhile BJP-PDP government and the Centre has brought the situation to that prevailing in the early 1990s, they alleged.
“The Central government spoiled the entire atmosphere in the Kashmir Valley and took us back to the early nineties.
