Amid the rumors, Ghulam Nabi Azad, the face of the Congress party in Kashmir, denied any plans to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) after an emotional exchange between him and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his farewell from Rajya Sabha.
“I will join the BJP when we have black snow in Kashmir,” he told Hindustan Times in an interview. “Why BJP — that’s the day I’ll join any other party. Those who say this or spread these rumours, they don’t know me.”
In the interview, Azad further said that the emotions of Modi, who broke down in the parliament recalling the militant attack on Gujrati tourists in 2006, were real. “Why we were both crying was not because we knew each other, but the reason was that, in 2006, a Gujarati tourist bus was attacked [in Kashmir], and I broke down while speaking to him,” he told the newspaper.
However, Azad said none of this will “affect the issues of Jammu and Kashmir”.
“The entire population is so concerned, not just about Article 370. Downgrading the state to aUnion territory, which was not a BJP agenda, and the division of the state, have hurt everybody; we’ve been reduced to ashes,” he said. “I’ve only seen upgradation of UTs into states, and my own state, which is among the largest and oldest states in the country, has been made a UT. Nobody can digest that.”
