By IANS,
Jammu : Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister and Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad Sunday said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s “rise” in the state was “worrying” for the entire country.
“It does worry me. These trends are the outcome of unfortunate things that happened (Amarnath land row) in July and August. The question is that secularism is getting shrunk at the cost of development,” Azad told reporters here as counting for the assembly polls was underway Sunday.
According to officials, three hours after the counting, the BJP was leading in 13 of the 37 seats in the Jammu region.
Azad said the BJP’s good showing should be “a worry for each and every Indian.”
“The rise of BJP in the border state which is facing terrorism is a worrying factor for the entire country,” he added.
“Their only vision is to create communal tension among the people. They are being rejected across the country because of their communalism.”
On the Amarnath land row, Azad who was ruling the state when it erupted, said the issue had been a tough one for his party.
“If we had withdrawn (the order of land allotment), one region would have erupted and if we had not the other region would have. It is difficult to take a decision keeping all the three regions in mind,” said Azad.
The trouble erupted when the state government decided in May to allot 40 hectares of land to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board that manages the annual pilgrimage to the high altitude shrine dedicated to Lord Shiva. The decision led to massive protests in the Muslim-dominated Kashmir valley. Its revocation July 1 ignited a counter agitation in the Hindu majority Jammu region.