Congress today alleged that a large part of the crowd that attended Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Kishtwar rally had come from other parts of the country while the locals constituted only 10 per cent.
"There was only 10 percent of local participation in yesterday's rally of Prime Minister, whereas the rest of the crowd was brought in from other states like Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. Buses were used to bring in those people," alleged senior Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad.
Speaking to reporters here, Azad said Modi kept on referring Kashmir in his address to a crowd in Jammu, adding that the local party workers were to blamed for not informing the PM that Kishtwar was in Jammu and not Kashmir.
"The Prime Minister kept repeating Kashmir in his speech. His local leadership did not even tell him that Kishtwar was in Jammu region and not in Kashmir," Azad said.
Terming Modi's remarks about governments in Jammu and Kashmir looting and plundering the state as "strong words", he said such comments were uncalled for on part of the PM.
"We can accept the fact that chief ministers in the state can be indecisive and weak, but loot and plunder were strong words as the state of Jammu and Kashmir does not get surplus money.
"Loot and plunder can be done in states that have surplus money for example states like Tamil Nadu and Andra Pradesh get revenue of Rs 20,000 crore from sale of liquor alone which is not the case with this state," Azad said.
Attacking the National Conference and the People's Democratic Party for "double standards", Azad said both the parties thwarted his attempt on the delimitation of Assembly segments in the state.
"When I was the chief minister, the PDP had supported me on the issue of delimitation during a cabinet meeting, but they changed their stand when we were about the take up the issue in the Assembly. The PDP and NC leaders had joined hands to thwart my attempts" Azad said.
Asserting that the election boycott call given by separatists in Kashmir Valley would not stop the people from coming out to vote, Azad said, "There were poll boycotts earlier also, but people in large number came out to vote. I am confident that people will come out to vote this time too".
