Bhubaneswar: A senior leader of the Odisha Congress Sunday reminded Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi that the BJP had forged an alliance with Jammu and Kashmir’s People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in 2015 and his attack on the Congress is “hilarious”.
Biswaranjan Mohanty’s assertion came a day after Majhi slammed the party for joining hands with the National Conference (NC) ahead of the Jammu and Kashmir assembly polls, alleging that the grand old party is “hungry for power”.
“Teleprompter Chief Minister of Odisha who is running to Delhi to take orders on how to govern Odisha has found time to criticise the Congress Party on the Kashmir issue,” Mohanty said in a statement.
Demanding that the Congress explain its stand on Jammu and Kashmir, Majhi in a video message on Saturday sought clarification from party leader Rahul Gandhi if his party would promote separatists by talking to Pakistan, instead of establishing peace by holding discussions with the people of the northern state.
Mohanty said, “I am not questioning him (Majhi) on his experience to speak on national issues but I would like to ask him: Has he forgotten the history of his own party?… Has he forgotten the BJP’s alliance with PDP?”
After the 2014 assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir delivered a fractured, the BJP and PDP stitched an alliance and Mufti Mohammad Sayeed became the chief minister in March next year.
“Who visited Pakistan and started friendship bus which was followed by Kargil?” the Odisha Congress leader asked.
He was referring to former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, during whose tenure Delhi-Lahore bus service began in 1999. Mohanty, however, did not mention the late BJP leader by name.
Mohanty said, “The truth is the chief minister is trying to divert public perception at a time when the Congress raised the issue of reservation and caste census in the assembly. Instead of public posturing on issues like Kashmir, the Odisha CM should focus on the emergent issues of the state.”
PTI