Govt formation without statehood felt incomplete: Rahul Gandhi

New Delhi, Oct 16: In a thinly veiled attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government at the Centre, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi Wednesday said that government formation without statehood felt incomplete today.

The reaction of the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha came hours after attending the oath-taking ceremony of Omar Abdullah in Srinagar.

Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha administered the oath of office to Omar Abdullah and his council of ministers at the Sher-e-Kashmir International Convention Centre (SKICC) in Srinagar.

Besides Rahul Gandhi, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav, Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, and some other INDIA alliance leaders were present on the occasion.

In a statement on the microblogging site X, Rahul Gandhi said, “Congratulations to CM Omar Abdullah and to the people of Jammu and Kashmir. However, government formation without statehood felt incomplete today.”

The Congress leader said, “Democracy was snatched from the people of Jammu and Kashmir, and today we renew our pledge to continue our fight until statehood is fully restored.”

Earlier, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge on Wednesday reaffirmed his party’s commitment to restoring statehood in J&K, following Omar Abdullah’s swearing-in as J&K’s chief minister.

Kharge said, “I have come here to congratulate him. We are happy that our alliance partner became the CM and democracy has been established here after a long time. We will ensure that statehood is restored here.”

Meanwhile, Congress leader Ghulam Ahmad Mir urged the Prime Minister to respond swiftly to the people’s mandate and restore the statehood of J&K.

Mir said, “The people have given their mandate to restore the status of the state. It was our first agenda. The PM also made this commitment to restore the state after the delimitation, and then the election. The formation of a cabinet (in J&K) is the third step. We would want the PM to respond as soon as possible to the mandate of the people. We want to say that give us the state, we will run the cabinet.”