TIL Desk/National/Srinagar/ The BJP top brass would never undertake a walkathon like the Bharat Jodo Yatra in Jammu and Kashmir as they are scared, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said here on Monday, asserting he continued his march in the Valley despite being advised against it as he is not afraid. “I can guarantee you that no BJP leader can walk like this in Jammu and Kashmir. They will not do it, not because they won’t be allowed by the people of J-K, but because they are scared,” Gandhi said, addressing a rally to mark the culmination of his nearly five month-long yatra from Kanyakumari to Kashmir.
Speaking amidst heavy snowfall, Gandhi, who wore a ‘pheran’ — a Kashmiri cloak — said he was advised against walking the four-day Kashmir lap of the yatra on the grounds that he might be attacked.
“When I was walking, the security people told me I can walk anywhere in India, even in Jammu, but the last four days in Kashmir, ‘you should drive in a car’… A few days before I reached Kashmir, the administration told me, perhaps to scare me, that if I walk, then a grenade can be lobbed upon me,” he said.
“I understand violence, I have endured it. Those who incite violence — like Modiji, Amit Shahji, Ajit Doval ji, and the RSS — will never understand this pain as they have never endured it. The family of an Army man will understand, the family of the CRPF personnel who were killed in Pulwama will understand. I know what goes through the hearts of their children.