leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad attacked Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif asking him to protect his own country rather than eying Kashmir.
“Due to Kashmir, Pakistan lost its eastern parts (now Bangladesh) in 1971 but could not take an inch of India’s land. Even now Pakistan can not take an inch of Kashmir,” Azad said while targeting Sharif.
Azad, also a AICC general secretary was talking to media persons at Prasada Bhawan - the residence of former Union minister Jitin Prasada in Shahjahenpur on Sunday night. Azad reached the town alongwith other leaders participating in a bus yatra to revive the party which was flagged off by Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on Saturday.
He hit out at the BJP, the BSP and the SP for dividing the society in UP in the name of community and caste. “We have started a new era of building confidence among the people putting aside the evil of caste and community,” he said.
On Monday - the third day of the road show, the Congress bus crossed Hardoi, Kannauj and Kanpur Dehat and it would culminate at Kanpur later in the night. In the first two days, the yatra covered Ghaziabad, Hapur, Amroha, Moradabad, Rampur and Bareilly in the past two days.
“ Due to caste and communal politics, UP did not achieve its desired development. But now the Congress has come to remove these elements and focus on the state’s development,” Azad affirmed.
Hitting out at the BJP government at the Centre, he said that two years of NDArule have elapsed but the PM’s promise to bring back black money is yet to materialise.
“The SP government, which promised to provide job to the youths, instead gave laptops to them. Our agenda will be to improve the law and order situation which has hit rock bottom during SP regime and justice has only come the way of gangsters and affluent people,” he said.
UP Congress chief Raj Babbar said that it was only Congress which can unite the country with its secular credentials. “ The situation in UP during the past 27 years has deteriorated after the Congress lost power. Now the people have to decide on who can lead them to betterment. The Congress has never compromised with communal forces nor has it ndugled in caste politics,” he said.
Commenting on possible tie-ups in UP for next year’s Assembly polls, Babbar said that Congress will have alliance with the common masses and with no other parties.
“People of UP had supported the BSP due to the caste factor in 2007. later in 2012, it supported the SP in the hope of getting employment and in 2014, the people supported the BJP in the lok Sabha polls. But all three have ditched the people and did nothing for them,” he stated.
Other Congress leaders including Sanjay Singh, Pramod Tiwari, Rita Bahuguna Joshi and Jitin Prasada were present in the Yatra.