When Indira Gandhi took granddaughter Priyanka to Kashmir, just days before assassination

She was 12 and Rahul Gandhi was 14 then, Priyanka said, adding that they some were blessed astir visiting Kashmir on with their grandmother. “Grandmother brought maine to Kashmir for the archetypal clip and took maine to Kheer Bhawani Temple and past to her spiritual guru Swami Lakshmanjoo-ji who had an ashram there,’’ she recalled. “Thereafter, we returned to Delhi and three-four days aboriginal she was assassinated,’’ she said.

“Since then, whenever I sojourn Srinagar, I spell to Kheer Bhawani temple,” the Congress person said, adding that she often wonders what benignant of telephone drew precocious Indira Gandhi to Kashmir conscionable days earlier her assassination. “This was a telephone from her ain land… from the Mata (Kheer Bhawani) that she visited the temple and took her grandson and granddaughter determination for the archetypal time,’’ she said.

“The bonding with the spot wherever your ancestors were calved is wholly different, thing which cannot beryllium explained successful words,” she said, adding that her household has the aforesaid enslaved with Jammu and Kashmir.

“When I travel here, I announcement that you look akin to me. When I look astatine idiosyncratic from the model of my vehicle, it seems to maine similar she is my sister,’’ she said.

Priyanka slammed the BJP for making J&K a “pawn successful its governmental chessboard”. “The policies for J&K contiguous are not made for its people, but for the payment of outsiders,” she said.

Describing J&K arsenic the crown of India, she said: “You person everything – a spiritual legacy, beauty, earthy resources… Perhaps this is the quality of the satellite that erstwhile 1 has everything, those with atrocious intentions effort to snatch it,’’ she said.

Criticising Prime Minister Narendra Modi for “browbeating each tiny development”, she asked wherefore the PM is not talking astir the “real issues” confronting the people. “Why is our PM not talking the information astir however overmuch you radical suffered erstwhile helium snatched the statehood presumption from you,’’ she asked.

She besides slammed the Lieutenant-Governor administration, saying, “There is an L-G who is ruling according to his whims and has established a authorities of distant power and loot.”

She said the radical are not getting their rights successful this administration. “Lands belonging to the section radical person turned into ‘land banks’ for large industrialists. What Modi-ji has established each implicit the country, that lone a fewer industrialists volition get everything, is being done successful Jammu and Kashmir arsenic well,” she said, adding that tiny businesses are being unopen with the opening of large retail stores. The section radical are feeling helpless and incapable to bash thing arsenic they bash not person their ain authorities successful J&K, the Congress person said.

She reiterated the Congress’s promises to rollback installation of astute meters, supply safeguards to section radical successful respect to their onshore and jobs, fortify tiny and mean businesses, commencement recruitment for each the 1 lakh authorities vacancies existing successful J&K among different things.

Priyanka was scheduled to code a rally astatine Billawar too, wherever erstwhile curate Manohar Lal Sharma is successful the fray connected Congress ticket, but her chopper could not onshore determination owed to atrocious weather.