Eye on Ghulam Nabi Azad, Congress starts outreach in Jammu areas

Our Correspondent

Jammu, September 13

Worried over the public meetings being conducted by Ghulam Nabi Azad in rural areas, Congress’ J&K chief Vikar Rasoon Wani and working president Raman Bhalla have also started outreach programme in Muslim-dominated areas of Jammu region.

Azad, who has been critical of the Congress, recently held public meetings in villages of Doda, Kishtwar and Ramban districts after which he went to Kashmir region. Vikar Rasool, who hails from Banihal in Ramban district, is on a tour of his hometown to garner support of locals.

Insiders in the party believe that the public meetings and workers’ convention are being conducted as the Assembly poll contest for the Congress in the hometown of its J&K chief will be a prestige issue. Wani is on his first visit to Ramban after becoming the UT president.

On Tuesday, a large number of Congress leaders and workers of Ramban gathered at the bus stand from where a procession to welcome Wani and Bhalla was held. Wani said, “The BJP government has nothing to highlight as its achievement. It has done nothing to address grievances of the people during the last eight years.”

“J&K has been pushed into a virtual whirlpool of corruption, maladministration and despair. Development process is almost paralysed while major initiatives taken by the previous Congress-led coalition government have been almost abandoned,” he said.

While Azad has generally refrained from criticising the BJP during his public address, Wani has opened an attack against the saffron party in his meetings. The Congress is struggling to carve a space that was wrested by the BJP in last Assembly polls. While the BJP got 25 seats, the Congress got only 12 seats in the 2014 Assembly polls.

Raman Bhalla, during a rally in Ramban, said the vacant posts should be filled.

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