Hand-in-hand with Rahul, Farooq Abdullah says forged alliance of unity to fight ‘divisive forces’

Anantnag, Sep 04: National Conference President and three-time chief minister Farooq Abdullah Wednesday said that the National Conference (NC) stitched up an alliance with the Congress to fight against the “communal and divisive forces”.

“We did not come together only to form the government, but to take people out of this distress,” Abdullah said addressing a rally in the Dooru assembly constituency of south Kashmir’s Anantnag district.

Leader of Opposition and senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also addressed the rally and formally started the poll campaign.

Abdullah said that they held each other’s hands to save the region from the “divisive forces”.

“They are making attempts to drive a wedge between Hindus and Muslims,” he said.

The former chief minister said that the INDIA alliance wanted to replace the current dispensation so that people could live a dignified life.

He said that ballooning unemployment and price rise had made the peoples’ lives miserable.

“We have a non-local bureaucracy. How can it understand your pain,” Abdullah said.

He said that today people do not have to differentiate between Congress and the NC.

“To restore our dignity, the ‘hand’ has to hold the ‘plough’ today,” the former chief minister said.

Abdullah said that bulldozers were run on the properties of Muslims and if people wanted to change this, they had to hold the hand of Rahul Gandhi.

Hailing the Supreme Court’s recent observations about the demolitions of houses, he expressed hope that the top court would also intervene in other matters to save the country.

Seeking votes for the alliance candidates, Abdullah appealed to the people to cast their votes on the poll days to save their future.

He urged the alliance partners to strengthen the unity to counter those who wanted to divide the region and people on communal lines.

“I have never heard in my life that a state is downgraded into a union territory, but they did it only because we are a Muslim-majority state,” Abdullah said.