Congress to hold press conference in 22 cities in India to 'expose' BJP

NEW DELHI: The Congress on Saturday said that it will hold a series of press conferences in 22 cities across the country seeking to corner the ruling BJP over the issue of terror and its alleged links with terrorists.

Congress leaders said the aim was to counter the BJP's false claims of nationalism and send a message to the grassroots that the ruling party has "connections" with individuals involved in heinous crimes and terrorism.

"Today, 22 of our senior leaders and spokespersons will hold press conferences in 22 cities to expose the "links of terrorists with BJP"," Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said in a tweet in Hindi, alleging that "evidence of terrorists having links with the BJP has come out".

"The BJP has links with terrorists, what is this relationship called?" he posed in the tweet.

The Congress has accused Riyaz Attari, one of the prime accused in the case of the murder of tailor Kanhaiya Lal in Rajasthan's Udaipur, to be a BJP member. It has also released pictures of him with BJP leaders in Rajasthan.

The BJP, however, denied any involvement with such elements and claimed that some of them had clicked pictures with their leaders after infiltrating the party ranks.

The Congress has claimed that Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist Talib Hussain Shah, who was captured by people from Reasi town in Srinagar recently, is in-charge of BJP's minority cell in Jammu and Kashmir, a claim denied by the BJP leadership in the union territory.

Pawan Khera, a Congress leader has raised questions as to how Talib Hussain Shah, who allegedly planned to attack the Amarnath Yatra in Kashmir, was seen in a photograph with Amit Shah. He suspected if it was a security breach or not.

This is the second press conference organized by Congress after the first attempt against the new Agnipath army recruitment scheme.

Congress has decided to take the BJP head-on on issues of national importance and will continue to exert nationwide pressure to get the party's message across to the masses and "expose" the BJP's claims.

Rajya Sabha MP Deepender Singh Hooda in Ahmedabad, Shaktisinh Gohil in Jaipur, Ajoy Kumar in Mumbai, Uttar Kumar Reddy in Bangalore, former Union minister M M Pallam Raju in Chennai, media and publicity head Pawan Khera in Raipur, Rajeev Gowda in Kolkata, Ranjeet Ranjan in Guwahati and Saptagiri Sankar Ulaka in Visakhapatnam are among the top Congress leaders who will appear for the press conference.

With PTI inputs