UDHAMPUR: Bharat Sinh Solanki, a senior AICC official and the party’s liaison for J&K affairs, claimed on Friday that the BJP was avoiding local and assembly elections out of concern that it would lose, “thus depriving people of J&K of basic democratic rights”. He claimed that the BJP should be held accountable for the injustices done to the people of J&K, since they had stolen their jobs, land, and statehood. Speaking alongside a group of local leaders to party workers in Udhampur, Solanki declared, “After losing the Kargil hill council polls, the BJP called off all elections, from local councils to panchayats. Even though the Supreme Court ordered that the long-overdue Assembly elections be held before the end of September this year, no one knows when they will take place.”In a scathing attack, Solanki accused the saffron party of “bringing unprecedented price rise of all commodities like petrol, diesel, LPG and other items”. Solanki urged the populace to rise up against the BJP government’s purportedly incorrect policies, saying that voters have to support issues that truly affect the nation’s common people and reject the BJP’s polarising strategies. Vikar Rasool Wani, the president of the UT Congress, claimed that the BJP has caused suffering for the people of J&K by stealing their rights. “There is widespread unemployment and joblessness, and the resources are being mercilessly plundered, depriving the people of a secure environment and means of subsistence. All significant projects are being worked on by outside contractors at the expense of local contractors, and there is no involvement from local stakeholders,” Wani stated. Raman Bhalla, the working president of the J&K Congress, took aim at the BJP for launching new booze stores in Jammu, which is known as the “City of Temples,” and other places where young people are readily gullible.