Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), Jitendra Singh, on Wednesday questioned the motive behind Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi's visit to the border areas of Jammu and Kashmir, saying the latter needs to own up responsibility for the grievances of the people of the region as UPA was in power for the last ten years.
"Congress Party has been ruling the state (Jammu and Kashmir) for several decades. Similarly, at the Centre, it was the Congress-led UPA which was uninterruptedly in power for ten years. If indeed there are certain grievances affecting the people of the border areas over there, the Congress leadership needs to own up responsibility for it," Singh told ANI.
"If the Congress today has suddenly become conscious about their past sins, and they wish to redeem it or vindicate it, then that is a welcome thought, but we have to be conscious about the fact that any initiative with regard to border area people has to be intended with a honest motivation of supplementing the good work being done by the forces deployed over there," he added.
Rahul arrived in Balakote, Jammu today for a two-day visit, to meet the victims of Pakistan firing and the areas affected in the ceasefire violations.
Rahul had a lengthy discussion with the civilians and the victims who were affected in the cross border shelling, talking to them about their conditions.
Later in the day, he will visit the other areas that have been affected by the continuous ceasefire violations.
BJP earlier slammed Rahul's J-K visit saying he was trying to 'politicize' the border issues.