Congress workers in Jammu held a demonstration outside their party headquarters in the Shaheedi Chowk area on Monday, demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who they accused of “destroying India’s global standing” and “surrendering” before the US.
Led by the party’s J&K president, Tariq Hameed Karra, they also demanded .
Earlier, the protesters tried to take out a procession but were not allowed to do so by a strong police force deployed at the location.
After a minor scuffle with the police personnel, the protesters, carrying placards reading “Restore Statehood” and “Hamari Riyasat Humara Haq (Our State, Our Right)”, started raising slogans against the Modi government and the India-US trade deal.
Speaking on the occasion, Karra accused the Prime Minister of having weakened institutions that once defined the country’s foreign policy.
“India once used to be a champion of the Non-Aligned Movement and regional cooperation platforms like SAARC, but today its image has been demeaned,” the Congress leader claimed.
Referring to the India-US trade deal, Karra alleged the government was compromising India’s interests in its dealings with global powers. They are even dictating terms on whether India should buy oil from Russia. Such decisions about our trade and energy security cannot be dictated by other countries,” he said.
Protesters also set ablaze flags of the United States and Israel as a mark of protest against the strikes on Iran and the subsequent unrest in West Asia.
Karra said the Congress had planned protests across all 20 districts of and Kashmir, and while protests were held simultaneously in Srinagar, police did not allow peaceful demonstrations in certain districts of the Kashmir Valley. He claimed that Congress workers in several districts of the Valley were either detained or placed under house arrest, terming it a curtailment of democratic rights.
“This is not democracy, but autocracy and a replica of the Nazi era,” he said, reiterating the party’s demand for restoration of statehood to J&K.
