Srinagar: The proposed participation of former BJP minister Lal Singh, who had supported the Kathua rape and murder case convicts in Bharat Jodo Yatra has landed the Congress party in trouble as the yatra is reaching Jammu and Kashmir.
Lal Singh who was a cabinet minister in the PDP-BJP government in 2018 has said that he will join the Bharat Jodo Yatra of Rahul Gandhi when it reaches Kathua district, the hometown of Lal Singh. Following Singh's statement, Congress spokesperson Deepika Pushkar Nath, who had lent legal support to the parents of Rasana minor girl resigned as the Congress could not clear the air on Lal Singh's participation.
Deepika, a lawyer in Jammu High Court, had lent legal support to the parents of the victim. Seven persons were convicted by a court in Pathankot in the Rasana rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl. The gory rape and murder were perpetrated by these convicts in Rasana hamlet of Kathua district on January 10, 2018.
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Lal Singh was then a cabinet minister in Mehbooba Mufti-led coalition government with his colleague Chander Praskh Bhagat, another BJP minister lent support to the convicts which led to his ouster from the cabinet and hence from BJP.
Caught in soup, Congress leader and former Deputy chief minister Tara Chand today said that the party has not invited yet Lal Singh to the yatra. "Congress party will sit and discuss whether to invite Lal Singh to the yatra; he has not been invited yet," Tara Chand told reporters in Srinagar.
The former chief minister and National Conference vice president Omar Abdullah said that Congress should not invite those leaders to the yatra who want to whitewash their past record. "Lal Singh's support to the convicts and accusing the victim is not hidden; it is recorded in the Assembly. It will be very wrong if these leaders participate in the yatra to show themselves as secular; it will be against the purpose and spirit of the Yatra," Omar told reporters in Srinagar.
Rahul Gandhi's Bharat Jodo Yatra, which started in September last year, will reach the Kathua district of Jammu region on Thursday. The yatra will culminate in Srinagar on January 30 and during these 10 days Rahul Gandhi will address two rallies one each in Jammu and Srinagar. Congress has invited 23 secular political parties to join the yatra in Kashmir which includes National Conference, PDP, and several other parties.
