"I used to get scared to go there," former Home Min Sushil Shinde recalls his earlier visits to JK

New Delhi, Sep 10: Recalling his experiences of visiting Jammu and Kashmir while he was the Home Minister of India, Congress leader Sushilkumar Shinde said that he used to feel scared but wasn't able to tell anyone about it.

During the launch of his memoir "Five Decades of Politics" on Monday at the India International Centre in Delhi, Shinde said that when he used to visit Kashmir's Lal Chowk and Dal Lake in Srinagar as the Home Minister, he used to get scared and was unable to share all this with anyone despite getting good publicity for his visits.

Shinde stated that he used to visit those places on the advice of educationalist Vijay Dhar, who was also his advisor. Shinde stated that this advice had sent a good message and used to get him good publicity and people thought that there was a Home Minister who visited the place without any fear but in reality, he used to get scared.

"Before I became the Home Minister, I visited him (educationist Vijay Dhar). I used to ask him for advice. He advised me to not roam around but to visit Lal Chowk (in Srinagar), meet people and go around Dal Lake. That advice gave me publicity and people thought that here is a Home Minister who goes there without any fear, lekin meri fat'ti thi wo kisko bataoon? (But who do I tell that I was scared?) I told you this just to make you laugh, but an ex-policeman can't speak like this," he said.

Shinde's remarks come in the middle of the election season in JK. The BJP has been reiterating that the withdrawal of Article 370 has resulted in the return of peace to the region.

Earlier on September 7, Union Home Minister Amit Shah launched an attack on the National Conference and the People's Democratic Party, Shah said that there were people who became Chief Ministers when there was peace in the territory but whenever there was little disturbance, they rushed to Delhi in coffee bars.

"Kashmir has suffered a lot from terrorism. There were governments in Kashmir that turned a blind eye to terrorism. There are people who would come here and become chief ministers when there was peace and when there was terrorism, they would go to Delhi and drink coffee in coffee bars," he said.