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| Jammu Cong leaders want Rahul to visit terror hit Dhangri families | | Recall Sonia Gandhi’s visit to Rajiv Nagar after 2002 terror attack | | Early Times Report
Jammu, Jan 10: Although the route of Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra in Jammu and Kashmir has already been finalized, some Jammu-based leaders have mooted the idea of taking the Congress leader to Dhangri village of Rajouri by changing the programme.
Some Jammu-based leaders have given these suggestions to hijack BJP’s agenda and to corner the party on the issue of killings of minorities.
Sources in Congress said that these suggestions were given in a meeting in which only half a dozen Jammu-based leaders were present who suggested that visit of Rahul Gandhi to the terror-affected Dhangri village will help the party to aggressively take on BJP for its failure to protect lives of minorities.
These leaders were of the opinion that on the one hand, targeted killings of members of the minority community are going on in Kashmir Valley after repeated intervals, attacks on minorities are restarted in Jammu province also.
These leaders reminded that after the infamous Rajiv Nagar attack in July 2002 when BJP was ruling the country, the then Congress leader Sonia Gandhi had visited the terror-affected colony on the outskirts of Jammu city.
Sonia Gandhi, accompanied by the then PCC President, Ghulam Nabi Azad, and AICC General Secretary Ambika Soni, had visited Rajiv Nagar where 28 persons had been massacred and an equal number wounded on July 13, 2002.
Congress president had distributed cheques for Rs 25,000 each to the kin of those killed in one of the worst terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir.
That visit of Sonia Gandhi had boosted morale of Congress workers in Jammu province and the party was revived in the 2002 assembly polls.
Important to mention here that before the arrival of Rahul Gandhi’s Yatra in J&K, BJP leader Devender Singh Rana asked the former Congress president to make his stand clear on the repeal of Article 370 and the People's Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) before the march enters the union territory.
The BJP-led central government revoked special status of Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the Constitution and bifurcated the state into two union territories in August 2019. The PAGD is an amalgam of five political parties -- National Conference, PDP, CPI(M), CPM and Awami National Conference -- formed to press for the restoration of the special status.
BJP leader Devender Singh Rana termed Gandhi's march a “Bharat todo yatra”, and said, “Rahul Gandhi should clarify his stand over the repeal of Article 370 before entering into the Union Territory for his Yatra.” |
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