’Tried to sell Ram...’: Farooq Abdullah accuses BJP of ‘threatening’ Hindu voters ahead of J-K polls

J-K Assembly Election: NC leader Farooq Abdullah criticised the BJP for allegedly intimidating Hindu voters in Jammu and Kashmir ahead of the assembly elections. "They believe that the Hindus will vote for them but today, the Hindus have changed now…," he said.

Farooq Abdullah, the former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister and National Conference president, said, “They [BJP] want to threaten the Hindu community. They believe that the Hindus will vote for them but today, the Hindus have changed now…First they [BJP] tried to sell Ram and now they want to threaten them," reported PTI.

Farooq Abdullah, who visited the Naseembagh mausoleum on the occasion of 42nd death anniversary of National Conference founder Sheikh Muhammad Abdulla, said, “We are not intruders. We don't snatching away mangalsutra…Muslims have an equal contribution towards the freedom of India.”

During the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi alleged that the Congress would "steal the gold of mothers and sisters" if it elected to power at the Centre. "Now these people's eyes are on the 'Mangalsutra' of women," he ad said.

While speaking to reporters at the mausoleum, he asserted that terrorism is rising again and blamed the BJP for it. Farooq Abdullah added, “They repealed Article 370 (of the Constitution) but did terrorism end? Terrorism is rising again and it is all their responsibility.”

Criticising the BJP's rhetoric, Abdullah vowed that the JKNC-Congress alliance will restore statehood.

Emphasising the secularism principle of the Constitution, the former chief minister said BJP's manifesto was just a “jumla and that Bharat belongs to all – Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists. 

“But we are against that Bharat which they [Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah] want to create,” Abdullah said.

"There are many questions. The biggest question, which the Congress Party and many parties have been raising is that you (BJP) took away the status of a full state from a state and made it a Union Territory. No bigger injustice has been done to any state in this country." PTI quoted Congress leader Pawan Khera as saying.

(With PTI inputs)