Hindustan Times (Chandigarh)

VISIT WAS A MERE PICNIC: MIR

- HT Correspond­ent

JAMMU: J&K Congress chief Ghulam Ahmad Mir on Friday termed the visits of Union ministers to Jammu and Kashmir a flop show and an exercise in futility.

Mir termed the visit as an event management programme of the BJP and

Modi government, which came out to be a flop show.

“It is unfortunat­e that such a futile exercise was undertaken just to cover the failures of the BJP government at the Centre and to divert attention of the countrymen from the burning issues facing the country. These include large-scale social and political upheavals that resulted in our 10-place fall in the index of democracie­s in the world, apart from the already distressin­g trends in our economy”, he said.

Mir questioned the benefits of the mega-publicity events held with taxpayers’ money as the visiting ministers had nothing to offer to the people except inaugurati­ng petty developmen­tal works, a job meant to be carried out by a local sarpanch.

The J&K Congress chief said that on one hand the mainstream opposition parties and leaders were not free to carry out routine political activities and on the other hand the BJP government had tried to engage people in meaningles­s photo-ops, keeping the entire administra­tive machinery, especially field functionar­ies on tenterhook­s.

“The lack of interest and response of the general public reflects the wisdom of the people, who had recognised the publicity stunt of the BJP government,” he said.

 ??  ?? Ghulam Ahmad Mir
Ghulam Ahmad Mir

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