J&K L-G Manoj Sinha was busy in Varanasi for election campaign amid Kashmir’s volatile security situation: U.P. Congress chief Ajay Rai

Uttar Pradesh Congress president Ajay Rai on June 12 said Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir Manoj Sinha failed in his constitutional duty and claimed that he was busy in election management of Ghazipur and Varanasi Lok Sabha seats despite the volatile security situation in the Union Territory.

“You get it checked where the Lieutenant Governor was when campaigning for Varanasi and Ghazipur was at the peak. He was visiting village after village mobilising support [for the BJP]. Not only Mr. Sinha, many other Governors were also stationed in Varanasi. When the security situation was volatile and deteriorating, he (Mr. Sinha) was in Purvanchal. It shows he failed in his constitutional duty,” Mr. Rai told The Hindu.

In the last four days, three terror attacks took place in Jammu and Kashmir. A CRPF jawan was killed and six security personnel were injured in two overnight encounters with terrorists in Kathua and Doda districts of Jammu and Kashmir. The two overnight incidents took place just days after terrorists attacked a bus carrying pilgrims from Shiv Khori temple to Katra, causing it to fall into a deep gorge, resulting in the death of nine people.

On Priyanka Gandhi

The U.P. Congress chief, while addressing a press conference, said the State unit wanted former U.P. Congress in-charge Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to contest the parliamentary polls from Varanasi, but the central leadership decided not to field Ms. Vadra from the constituency.

The statement made by Mr. Rai comes a day after former Congress president Rahul Gandhi said that had Ms. Vadra, his sister, contested the Lok Sabha polls from Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi would have lost by two or three lakh votes.

The grand old party fielded Mr. Rai from Varanasi Lok Sabha seat with Mr. Modi defeating the State Congress chief by a margin of over 1.52 lakh votes, but the margin of victory reduced by roughly 60% votes in comparison to the 2019 general election.

In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls in Varanasi, Mr. Modi polled 6,12,970 votes against Ajay Rai’s 4,60,457 votes, while in 2019 polls, the PM polled 6,74,664 votes against his nearest rival, Shalini Yadav of the Samajwadi Party (SP), who got 1,95,159 votes.