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Chandigarh: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national president Amit Shah on Saturday left journalists agitated when he said,’aap chup ho jaiye‘ (you keep quiet), ‘hum sab kar lenge‘ to a serious question. The incident took place while he was addressing media at ‘Meet the Press’ programme here. A leading news portal, quoted a young journalist saying,”This kind of reaction to queries does not go well with the president of a national party.” Meanwhile one of the apologetic organisers was heard saying, “What can we do? This is his style.”
On the other hand, when Shah was asked about the deteriorated situation in Kashmir Valley, he blamed Congress for it and expressed confidence that Narendra Modi led NDA government will soon control the present situation in the Valley. “What else Congress can say. Kashmir problem emerged because of Congress,” Shah said in Chandigarh.
He was asked to respond to the Congress allegations, which had reportedly accused NDA government of failing to control the situation in Kashmir. Concerned over the “disturbed” situation in the Valley, the Congress had formulated a policy-planning group for Jammu and Kashmir on April 19, to take forward the peace initiative in the state. The policy-planning group is chaired by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and includes former Home Minister P Chidambaram and CWC members Karan Singh and Ghulam Nabi Azad, besides the J-K Congress in charge Ambika Soni. The Congress has been critical of the Centre as well as the PDP-BJP coalition government over the handling of the situation in J-K since July last year.
When asked about Kashmiri students indulging in stone pelting at the security personnel, Shah said such situations had emerged in the past as well. “Kashmir faced such situations several times since 1989 (since onset of militancy in the state). It is not for the first time that such a situation had erupted and these situations were controlled. Whenever security agencies adopted a tough stand, such situations arose. I am confident that this situation will soon be controlled,” he said.
Showering praise on three-year old regime of Modi government at the Centre, he said, “The NDA government has worked for the upliftment of poor, downtrodden, labourers and farmers. He said the present government at the Centre has taken a bold step like demonetisation to contain spread of black money to a large extent and boost countrys economy.” Welcoming the International Court of Justice (ICJ) order, which stayed the execution of former Naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav, he termed it as “a very big achievement” for the government.
The BJP chief is on a 110-day country-wide tour, which began in Jammu last month. His tour will be in two phases– 95 days and 15 days. With an eye on the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Shah is travelling across states to strategise and find ways to strengthen the party at the grass-root level.
