‘Rahul never spoke of ending quotas’

Jammu: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge reaffirmed Saturday his party’s commitment to continuing reservations until “there is casteism” and debunked claims that leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi had advocated their scrapping during his recent US visit.“He (Rahul) has not said so. He will not say so. We will not even allow him to say so,” Kharge said in response to a question at a news conference in Jammu where he reiterated that restoring J&K’s statehood topped Congress’s agenda.Kharge asserted that reservations could not be scrapped. “Until there is untouchability and lack of social justice, reservation will continue,” he said.Kharge slammed threats and derogatory remarks by some BJP leaders against Rahul, declaring that Congress would not be cowed down by “RSS-BJP’s poisonous mindset”. He questioned PM Narendra Modi’s failure to take action against such BJP leaders. “We will launch an agitation against this,” the Congress president warned.Speaking about the ongoing J&K assembly polls, Kharge was asked whether Congress would support ally National Conference’s (NC) promise to bring back the scrapped Article 370 related to special status. “Our first agenda is restoration of statehood. After ensuring that, other matters can come later,” Kharge replied.Kharge rejected suggestions that giving more seats to NC amounted to a “surrender”. “No, it was neither a surrender nor a compulsion for Congress. The alliance is nationwide. It can be seen in Parliament, too. The alliance has been formed to uproot BJP, to keep RSS away from exerting its influence and safeguard the state,” Kharge said.Kharge expressed optimism about the outcome of the polls. “The first phase of elections (Sept 18) went off well. We are hopeful NC and Congress will get maximum seats,” he said.The Congress chief scoffed at allegations by PM Modi and home minister Amit Shah that the Congress-NC combine was pursuing a “Pakistani agenda”, terming it a false and diversionary tactic. The allegations flew after a Pakistan minister declared that restoring J&K’s special status under Article 370 should be a priority. “We have not gone to eat biryani. We did not hug him. They hugged him and now blame us,” Kharge said. The allusion was to Modi’s surprise 2015 trip to Pakistan and his meeting with then PM Nawaz Sharif.Kharge pointed out that BJP had governed J&K for 10 years through lieutenant-governors but had not kept its promises. “They keep bringing up Pakistan to divert attention from their unfulfilled promises,” Kharge said. He also slammed Modi and Shah for repeatedly targeting Rahul and NC chief Farooq Abdullah’s families with false claims about scrapping of reservations.