Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha was busy campaigning for the Lok Sabha elections while the security situation in the Union territory was deteriorating, Congress’ Uttar Pradesh unit chief Ajay Rai alleged on Wednesday, reported The Hindu.
“You get it checked where the Lieutenant Governor was when campaigning for Varanasi and Ghazipur was at the peak,” Rai told the newspaper. “He was visiting village after village mobilising support [for the Bharatiya Janata Party]”.
He added: “When the security situation was volatile and deteriorating, he [Sinha] was in Purvanchal. It shows he failed in his constitutional duty.”
In the recently-concluded general elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi won the Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency in Uttar Pradesh for a third consecutive term with a margin of 1.5 lakh votes.
Modi was able to secure around 6.1 lakh votes while Rai, who contested from the same seat, got 4.6 lakh votes.
The Congress leader’s remarks on Wednesday came against the backdrop of three militant attacks in Jammu and Kashmir since Sunday.
On Wednesday, two militants and a Central Reserve Police Force officer were killed in the Kathua district after a gunfight that lasted through the previous night.
Hours later, a special police officer was injured after militants opened fire at a joint team of police and paramilitary forces in Doda district’s Kota Top area, near Gandoh.
Kathua lies along the International Border with Pakistan in the south of Jammu city while Doda is situated in the Chenab Valley region of the Jammu division.
The joint team had launched a search operation in the Kota Top area after a checkpost manned by personnel from the 4 Rashtriya Rifles and the police was attacked by militants on Tuesday.
Five Army personnel and a police officer were injured in the clash.
Militant outfit Kashmir Tigers, which has been linked to the terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed, claimed responsibility for the attack on the security forces in Doda.
The violence on Wednesday broke out two days after nine civilians were killed and 33 others injured in a militant attack on a passenger bus in Jammu and Kashmir’s Reasi district on Sunday.
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