Kashmir’s ‘Giant Killer’ joins Cong
Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi on Saturday found time from his election campaign in Uttar Pradesh to welcome Tariq Hameed Karra, a founder member of the People’s Democratic Party, into the party’s fold at a press conference at the AICC headquarters here.
Karra, who quit the PDP as well as the Lok Sabha membership in September last year, was hailed in Jammu and Kashmir as a "Giant Killer" in 2014 when he defeated former CM and National Conference patron Dr. Farooq Abdullah, by a huge margin.
Describing his disillusionment with the PDP when late Mufti Mohd Sayeed joined hands with the "fascist forces" to form the government in J&K, Karra said he tried his best but without success to convince the party leaders that "we should not give space to such party (BJP) which has been engaged since pre-Independence days in putting the social fabric of the country into jeopardy."
Karra said: "We in the PDP sought votes against BJP only to ensure it does not get space in the corridors of power and the rest is history."
He said his conscience did not allow him to carry on any further in the PDP in 2016 "when both PDP and BJP in connivance with each other maimed people of J&K, mishandled the situation, jailed people against the conscious of Indian polity, and blinded children of the age of 5 and 8 years."
Karra said he decided to join the Congress after extensive discussions with both Sonia and Rahul Gandhi and found that they have "definitive ideas about how to bring out J&K out of the slumber." He said he has offered his services to the Congress to fight out the RSS and menace of other divisive forces not only in J&K but elsewhere throughout India as desired by the party.