Cong urges voters to teach PDP, BJP lesson in civic body polls

Jammu and Kashmir unit of Congress today accused the PDP-BJP government of ignoring the plight of people in the state and urged voters to "teach a lesson" to the ruling parties in the upcoming civic body elections.
"The BJP-PDP alliance has been ignoring the plight of the people of the state. The people of Bihar and the people of Gujarat have taught a lesson to BJP and now it's the time for the people of Jammu and Kashmir to teach the ruling parties a lesson in the upcoming civic body polls," JKPCC Chief Ghulam Ahmed Mir told party workers here today.

Mir said this while addressing a rally here during which prominent Gujjar leader of Poonch -- Choudhary Abdul Gani joined the Congress. Senior leaders of the party besides legislators attended the public meet.
Choudhary Gani had left National Conference before the last assembly elections and contested as independent candidate from Haveli (Poonch), securing around 18,000 votes.
Mir said promises of BJP and PDP have proved to be just a "bluff" and claimed that people were fed up with the policies and "sheer opportunism" of the two parties.
"Both parties took extreme positions on most of the emotional issues and exploited their respective constituencies to the hilt with a false and deceptive promise to keep each other out of power, if voted in strength," he alleged.

Mir said the two parties took a complete U-turn on their

respective positions after the elections due to which people feel "betrayed and cheated".
"People want to teach both the parties a lesson for taking their sentiments and emotions for a ride in order to gain power," he said.
"Instead of 'Achhe Din', people now want return of old days as the prices of all essential commodities have been touching record high. The government has failed on all the fronts," he said.
He said with the implementation of the National Food Security Act (NFSA) in Jammu and Kashmir, a large number of the state population will be deprived of government ration.

"The NFSA is not suited for Jammu and Kashmir and that is why the previous state government did not implement it here. But now as this government has done so... A large number of population of state would be left out and won't get any ration," he said.