Srinagar: The BJP on Sunday said that it would extend its support to its “friends” in the three Lok Sabha constituencies of the Kashmir Valley. It also, once again, appealed to the electorate in the predominantly Muslim Valley “not to trust” the Congress party and its allies and “stay away from them” in the ongoing elections.
“The BJP has a good relationship with the other like-minded parties in the Kashmir Valley. We have some good and trusted friends here and we will extend our support to them,” the BJP’s J&K unit president Ravinder Raina told reporters here.
The BJP has fielded candidates only for the Udhampur and Jammu seats in Jammu and Kashmir, the polling which was held in the first and second phases of the election on April 19 and 26, respectively. Union home minister Amit Shah had while speaking at an election rally at Paloura in Jammu on April 16 hinted at the BJP’s not fielding its candidates for the three Lok Sabha seats in Kashmir when he said that the saffron party was not in a hurry to see “lotus bloom” in the scenic Valley. He had said, “We are not going to conquer Kashmir as is being projected by our adversaries. We want to win every heart of Kashmir.”
Mr. Shah had, however, urged the people of the Valley not to vote in favour of Congress, National Conference or the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the Lok Sabha elections as it were these parties which, he alleged, staged fake encounters in J&K and handed the guns over to its youth ruining their lives in the past.
This story was originally published in deccanchronicle.com. Read the full story here.