Make flag-hoisting at Srinagar all-party event: Gadkari

BEIJING - BJP president Nitin Gadkari has justified the BJP Yuva Morcha Kashmir Yatra to hoist the national flag in Srinagar and appealed to the Congress party as well as the National Conference to join his party and make it an all-party event.

He said the BJP’s Muslim workers in Jammu & Kashmir were supporting the Yatra because “we don’t find anything wrong in hoisting the natonal flag in our own country,” Gadkari told Indian journalists here. He is a on a five-day goodwill visit to China.

In reply to a question, Gadkari said “I don’t think the Yatra will create any security problem. It is the responsibility of the state government to maintain law and order because it is the democratic right of every Indian citizen to feel free to hoist the national flag anywhere in the country”.

Gadkari condemned the Karnataka governor’s action sanctioning prosecution of Chief Minister B.S.Yeddyurappa for corruption as “politically motivated and inspired by the Congress party.”

He criticized the Congress party for “misusing the office of the governor to settle scores against its political opponents in the same manner in which it has been misusing the CBI”.

Gadkari defended the Karnataka chief minister and said if Yeddyurappa’s action in using his discretionary powers (to allot land) was wrong then the governor should have recommended action against previous chief ministers too who too had exercised the same discretionary powers.