Lal Chowk ‘part of RSS agenda’, says Cong, will end Rahul Yatra with flag hoisting at party Srinagar HQ

The main function to mark the culmination of the Yatra will be held at Sher-i-Kashmir International Convention Centre (SKICC), Srinagar.

Patil was speaking to mediapersons after around 60 members of Ghulam Nabi Azad’s Democratic Azad Party (DAP), many of them its founding members, returned to the Congress fold Tuesday. Those who have left DAP include two-time former MLC Nizam-ud-Din Khatana and Gulzar Khatana, former vice-chairman of the Gujjar and Bakerwal Advisory Board.

“Hum jaldi hi Azad sahib ko azad kar denge (we will soon ‘free’ Ghulam Nabi Azad of his party),” Patil said, adding that more people from the DAP will join the Congress in Srinagar.

The latest departures from the DAP come ahead of Azad’s meeting with the Election Commission for registration of his party name.

Earlier, Azad had expelled three senior leaders – former deputy chief minister Tara Chand, former minister Dr Manohal Lal Sharma and former MLA Balwan Singh – leading to the departure of nearly 126 of their supporters.

Giving details of the Bharat Jodo Yatra, which will enter Jammu on January 19, Patil said the march will have a night halt there.

Veteran politicians like former chief minister Farooq Abdullah and ex-minister Choudhary Lal Singh have announced they will join the Yatra at Lakhanpur next week. Omar Abdullah is expected to join the Yatra in Kashmir, while CPI(M) leader M Y Tarigami, Muzaffar Shah of the Awami National Conference and Shiv Sena leaders would be participating at different places.

Patil said that ex-CM Mehbooba Mufti has said she wants to join along with her mother and daughter, but it is not clear where the three would do so.

Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut, who is arriving Jammu on a three-day visit, will be among the participants, a statement by the Uddhav Thackeray Sena said.

The Congress had written a letter to 21 parties inviting them to join the Yatra at the culmination in Srinagar.

Patil said that the SKICC event to mark the Yatra’s end will be attended by top leaders from the country as well as from abroad.

Reacting to Patil’s statement on flag-hoisting at Lal Chowk being the RSS’s agenda, the BJP said that “given an option, we will like that Lal Chowk be the place where Tricolour is unfurled on January 26 every year’’.

“Making Lal Chowk, which had been the nerve centre of separatism, the nerve centre of nationalism will be the answer to all separatist activities there,” said J&K BJP’s chief spokesperson Sunil Sethi. “Unfurling the Tricolour there is not RSS [agenda], but it is India vs separatist forces in Kashmir, and Lal Chowk being the nerve centre of Kashmir politics, only nationalist forces shall be there.’’

Alleging that the Congress along with National Conference always used Lal Chowk as “a symbol of particular ideology since 1947’’, he said that “even if it wants to unfurl the Tricolour there, it will make uneasy both the National Conference and PDP who are supporting the Rahul Gandhi yatra’’.

Referring to the significance of Lal Chowk, he said the place had been the nerve centre of Kashmir politics and a centre of separatist activities where anti-India and pro-Pakistan speeches had been delivered from time to time. “If one wants to ignore its historical importance, it is one’s own choice, but it is a big thing that Tricolour is unfurled there,’’ he said.