Kharge, Sonia, Rahul, Priyanka on Cong's star campaigner list for J&K
New Delhi (PTI): Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, former party chiefs Sonia and Rahul Gandhi and AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra are among the star campaigners named by the party for the Jammu and Kashmir assembly polls.
Congress general secretaries Jairam Ramesh, K C Venugopal, Sachin Pilot, Ghulam Ahmad Mir as well as Himachal Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and his deputy Mukesh Agnihotri are also on the list the Congress has submitted to the Election Commission for the second phase of the three-phase polls.
Jammu and Kashmir Congress chief Tariq Hamid Karra, former J&K Congress chief Vikar Rasool Wani, senior leaders Salman Khurshid, Ajay Maken, Syed Naseer Hussain, Rajani Patil, Rajiv Shukla and Manish Tewari are also part of the 40 leaders on the Congress list.
Kickstarting the party's election campaign in Jammu and Kashmir, Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said restoring J&K's statehood will be the first decision of the INDIA bloc when it comes to power at the Centre if the Modi government fails to do so after the assembly polls.
Addressing rallies in the Dooru and Banihal assembly segments, Gandhi alleged that the lieutenant governor appointed by the Centre in Jammu and Kashmir was acting like a "21st-century king" and all benefits were being given to people from "outside" the UT.
The Congress' media and publicity department head Pawan Khera, social media department head Supriya Shrinate, Amethi MP Kishorilal Sharma, NSUI in-charge Kanhaiya Kumar and Indian Youth Congress chief Srinivas BV also figure on the list of star campaigners for the second phase of the polls.
The 90-member Jammu and Kashmir assembly will go to polls in three phases on September 18, September 25 and October 1, and the counting of votes will be taken up on October 8.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
