Rahul Gandhi at UC Berkeley: ‘By 2013, we basically broke the back of terror and there was peace in the state.’
The BJP on Tuesday criticised Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi for his remarks on Kashmir during an event at the University of California in Berkeley. Responding to Gandhi’s remarks, BJP slammed the 44-year-old leader and said he should have read up on Kashmir before speaking. “Problem in Kashmir is due to decades of Congress misrule and due to his grandfather’s policies. He must read up,” BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav said.
Speaking at the Berkeley event, the Congress scion said tension in Kashmir had come during the tenure of Manmohan Singh. “For nine years, I worked behind the scenes with PM Manmohan Singh, P Chidambaram, Jairam Ramesh and others on the situation in Jammu and Kashmir. When we started, terrorism was rampant in Kashmir but when we finished there was peace,” he said.
Reacting to this, Union Minister of State for Development of North Eastern Region, Jitendra Singh said, “On the contrary, absence of peace in Kashmir was cumulative of Congress misrule in Centre and the state for decades,” Singh said.
Watch: Rahul Gandhi’s full speech at UC Berkeley
During his interaction with members of the audience at the Berkeley event, Rahul Gandhi went on to praise PDP for its efforts, but blamed BJP for ruining the situation. “PDP was instrumental in bringing youngsters in politics, but the day it made alliance with BJP, PM Modi destroyed the party,” he said. “Prime Minister massively opened up space for the terrorists in Kashmir, and you saw the increase in violence,” the Congress leader added.
