On March 13th, scores of Congress activists in Jammu, including Pradesh Congress Committee president Vikar Rasool Wani, were detained after they tried to take out a protest march to the Raj Bhavan. The protesters were rallying against the Adani issue and the alleged anti-people policies of the Jammu and Kashmir administrations. The demonstrators also demanded the restoration of statehood and early assembly elections in the Union Territory. Wani accused the BJP of denying a probe into allegations of financial irregularities and market manipulation by the Adani group, claiming that the Modi-Adani friendship has destroyed the country. As the marchers approached the Vivekanand chowk en route to the Raj Bhavan, police intervened and took many of them into preventive custody, boarding them into two buses and whisking them away to a nearby police installation.
The Congress activists were also protesting against the imposition of anti-people laws by the Lt Governor-led administration since 2019, when the special status of J-K under Article 370 was revoked, and the state was bifurcated into two union territories. The JKPCC president denounced the J-K administration for the imposition of property tax, launching anti-encroachment drives, growing unemployment, job scams, and the hiring of a previously blacklisted company to conduct computer-based written tests for filling up various government vacancies.
The protest was planned to press for the setting up of a joint parliamentary committee to probe allegations of fraud against industrialist Gautam Adani, growing inflation, baton charge on peaceful protestors, including students and casual laborers, restoration of statehood, and early assembly elections. Condemning the police action, Congress spokesperson Jahanzaib Sirwal said, “This is the state of affairs in J-K where a peaceful protest is not allowed. It is the ‘murder’ of democracy, but such things will not stop us from raising the issues concerning the public and demand for restoration of statehood and early assembly elections.” Sirwal added that the Congress party will continue to raise public issues and expose the BJP for trying to suppress the opposition.