Azad nixes claims of 1 lakh people at Modi rally

Ridiculing the BJP's claim that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would address an election rally of more than 1 lakh people in Srinagar on Sunday, senior Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad said on Sunday that it was “misleading”.

“This is not only misleading but preposterous. The BJP, in its desperation to gain power, has perhaps decided to beat the record of Hitler's propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels,” he said at election rallies in north Kashmir’s Baramulla district.

“When the capacity of the mini-stadium (SK Stadium) where the prime minister is supposed to address the public meeting is only 5,000, how the BJP claims it will accommodate 1 lakh people is a mystery” said Azad.

“If a podium is erected for the prime minister, the capacity will further be reduced to 3,000-4,000. But the BJP alone can make 1 lakh out of 4,000-5,000 people, the way they have been misleading the people of the country about Article 370 for the last 60 years,” he added.

Mocking the BJP’s “Mission 44-plus” in Jammu and Kashmir, the Congress leader said: “The party that could not keep 11 MLAs together has no moral right to make misleading claims of achieving 44 seats in the state.

“The BJP’s real face was exposed when half a dozen of its MLAs betrayed its trust by selling votes in the MLC elections (in 2011).”

Azad also lashed out at the BJP for inviting Muslim clerics for canvassing, and asked where these “hired mullahs” were when the people of the state were braving bullets and fighting militancy.

“If these mullahs are moving from place to place in J&K, it clearly shows that they have some vested interests. Otherwise, why they are roaming from for the past one month?” he asked.

Lashing out at the NC and the PDP for raising “Autonomy” and “Self Rule” slogans, Azad said, “They are habitual in raising sentimental issues for elections, and conveniently forget about them once they attain power.”