Hitting out at the BJP leadership, Mukesh Agnihotri, Deputy Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh, on Friday said that Pakistan sponsored terrorism has revived in the peaceful Jammu region and the BJP government has failed to control it.

Agnihotri, who is a senior election observer of the Congress party for the ongoing assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir, told media persons here that terrorism was almost wiped out from the Jammu region during the Congress regime when all ten districts of the region were declared terror free but due to amateurish policies of BJP terror attacks have resurfaced here.

He said about 45 Army soldiers and paramilitary force personnel have lost their lives in terrorist attacks in the past three years.

“In a bid to hide their failure, BJP leaders are trying to create a fear psychosis among the people particularly in the Jammu region by saying that terrorism will come back if the Congress-National Conference alliance was voted to power in J&K,” said Agnihotri.

Pooh-poohing Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other BJP leaders linking the Congress-NC alliance with Pakistan, Agnigotri said that such talk was “childish.”

Pakistan is scared of the Gandhi family as it was the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi who broke Pakistan in 1971 and paved the way for creation of Bangladesh, he said.

Agnihotri accused the BJP leadership of double talk and, without naming PM Narendra Modi, said that the BJP leader made a surprise visit to Pakistan but terrorism continued to increase here.

He alleged that corruption and nepotism were rampant in Jammu and Kashmir after abrogation of Article 370 as sand and liquor mafias from other states have entered here and were exploiting the resources.

Agnihotri said there was frustration among the youth in Jammu as well as in the Kashmir valley due to rising unemployment. “Paper leak” has badly hit the recruitment process as the earlier selection lists were cancelled due to such scams.

He criticized the BJP government for discontinuing the bi-annual “durbar move” of offices between Jammu and Srinagar. The exercise that was initiated during the regime of the Dogra rulers was a step towards integration between the Jammu region and the Kashmir valley. An earlier move to stop the durbar move practice was reverted after intervention of the then PM Rajiv Gandhi.

He also criticized the BJP government for degrading the historical J&K state into a union territory. The BJP leadership, sensing the anger among the people, has now started saying in the poll rallies that statehood of J&K will be restored, he said.

Agnihotri said that the popularity of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has increased across the country as a result of which BJP was feeling insecure.