The BJP on Wednesday held a protest against the Jammu and Kashmir government, with Leader of Opposition in the Assembly, Sunil Sharma, daring Chief Minister Omar Abdullah to resign from his Ganderbal seat and seek a fresh mandate on the issue of statehood restoration.Carrying placards, BJP leaders and hundreds of workers assembled near the Clock Tower at Lal Chowk and raised slogans against the National Conference government.
Sharma said that from Lal Chowk, the BJP workers will march towards the Civil Secretariat as part of their protest.
Addressing the party workers, Sharma said the people of J&K are facing hardships.
“Today, survival has become difficult for the common and poor people. There is a water crisis across J&K, yet not a single fitter or executive engineer is visible anywhere, let alone a minister.
“Go to the hospitals – there are no doctors, no medical staff, and no one to attend to the poor. Go to the schools – there are no teachers, no masters, no headmasters,” Sharma said.
Criticising Abdullah, Sharma asked if people elected him “to live like a prince and go skiing in Gulmarg and Pahalgam?” He dared Abdullah to resign from his home constituency Ganderbal and seek a fresh mandate over the issue of restoration of statehood to J&K.
“If you have any self-respect left, fight an election on it (statehood)… Only then will we acknowledge it as your issue,” Sharma said.
He said the issue of statehood belonged to the BJP as it has promised to the people to restore it at an appropriate time. The BJP leader also accused the government of outsourcing 25,000 jobs.
According to Sharma, the BJP’s protest centred around four issues – “selling” jobs instead of conducting fair recruitment; not conducting local body polls; “rampant corruption”; and power tariff hikes.
