Jammu: Congress on Friday demanded full statehood for Jammu and Kashmir and also special status like Himachal Pradesh and other states.
This was said by Syed Nasir Hussain, Congress party General secretary in-charge of Jammu and Kashmir during his first visit to Jammu after his appointment a few weeks ago.
Hussain also questioned the Modi-led government why they are not giving the statehood back to Jammu and Kashmir as promised by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier.
"Elections were held and people gave their mandate for a strong coalition government and BJP was not given the mandate to serve Jammu and Kashmir. Why is the government delaying the statehood to Jammu and Kashmir as promised before elections," the Congress leader asked.
He said that they have been raising this issue everywhere and also in the Parliament on regular intervals. "During our internal meetings also we have been raising this issue and in a recent session in Gujarat a resolution was passed to put pressure on the government to restore full statehood to Jammu and Kashmir,” he said.
He termed the case against senior Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi in connection to National Herald by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) "baseless".
"Because money was not laundered, there is no money trail, no salaries were drawn. It is a politics of vendetta to divert the attention of people on burning issues like Waqf Amendment Act, unemployment. The opposition has been imposing pressure on the government in the Parliament and they want to divert the attention by opening the old cases against Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi," he claimed.
"Congress never budged in front of Britishers before independence and today those who are playing the role of Britishers know it very well that Congress will not budge in front of them. (Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha) Rahul Gandhi will not be frightened by the tactics of the government. During the 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' of Rahul Gandhi they tried to lodge cases against him in different parts of the country but he did not step back and he will never be frightened with these tactics," Hussain said.
On the Waqf Amendment Act, 2025, Hussain said the BJP-led government has spread lies throughout the country regarding Waqf properties and during the hearing in Supreme Court Solicitor General Tushar Mehta was not able to respond to the queries of the judges and he had no answer.
"They adopted tactics of speaking lies against the Waqf and spread these lies in a way that people accept these lies. In the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC), where I was also a member, we had raised several questions regarding the Bill but the government had no answer and the Supreme Court has raised similar queries and Tushar Mehta and government had no answers to them," he added.
"We asked for proofs, record and data but they bulldozed the JPC. I was listening to (Minority Affairs Minister) Kiren Rijiju’s interview in which he said that 90 per cent recommendations of the JPC have been accepted but those recommendations were only of BJP MPs part of the JPC and our recommendations were not taken care of," he added.
