Cricketer-turned-politician Gautam Gambhir, who joined the Bharatiya Janata Party last month, continued his attack of former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, bringing up their recent Twitter spat while speaking to the media on Thursday.
“She can block me [on social media]” but for how long will she block the 130 crore people of this country? How long will she block their realities?” he said, referring to Mufti’s move to block Gambhir on Twitter last week.
Referring to the so-called “Modi wave”, a reference to the popularity of BJP’s 2014 prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, Gambhir said, “There is a wave in this country and if she doesn’t flow with it, she will drown. In 2014, there was a wave, in 2019 there is tsunami and there is development.”
Mufti had blocked Gambhir on Twitter on April 9 after a heated exchange over the BJP’s manifesto promise of abrogating Article 370 of the Constitution, which grants special status to Jammu and Kashmir. The spat began when Mufti tweeted that the revocation of the Article 370 would mean the Indian Constitution would not apply to the state any more.
The former cricketer then told Mufti that unlike her, India was “not a stain that could be wiped out so easily” and accused her of having “lack of depth in personality”. Mufti, meanwhile, took digs at Gambhir’s cricket career and said she worries for his mental health.
At another interaction with the media in Kathua district of Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday, where he was campaigning for BJP’s Udhampur candidate Jitendra Singh ahead of voting on April 23. Gambhir hit out at Mehbooba as well as Jammu and Kashmir Omar Abdullah.
He criticised Abdullah for saying at a rally on earlier this month that Jammu and Kashmir should have a separate prime minister once again, as they did until 1965, when that post was replaced with that of a chief minister. “From Kashmir to Kanyakumari, India is one and the dream of having separate prime minister [for Jammu and Kashmir] will never be fulfilled. We will not allow it to happen,” Gambhir said, according to PTI.
Terming the stance of the former chief ministers over Article 370 as unfortunate, Gambhir alleged that they have done nothing for the state when they were in power. “They do not think beyond their own welfare. They will achieve nothing from this type of politics and are making such statements after getting exposed and finding themselves irrelevant,” PTI quoted him as saying.
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