The ‘yatris' of the Bharatiya Janata Party returned to the capital on Wednesday in a self-congratulatory mood, and blamed the Centre and the Jammu and Kashmir government for its failure to hoist the national flag at Lal Chowk in Srinagar to mark Republic Day.
Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj said she would take up the issue in Parliament, and congratulated the youth wing of the party, led by Anurag Thakur, for its Ekta Yatra from Kolkata to Srinagar.
Ms. Swaraj's counterpart in the Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitley, said the ‘yatris' remained peaceful throughout and the only violence came from the Omar Abdullah government, which forcibly held them back.
A large group of ‘yatris' gathered at the BJP office at Ashoka Road here, and they were addressed by senior leaders L.K. Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Rajnath Singh, Ms. Swaraj and Mr. Jaitley, among others.
Ms. Swaraj and Mr. Jaitley charged the Jammu and Kashmir government with acting illegally, with Ms. Swaraj saying that under Section 144 that was imposed in Jammu they could be arrested but not forcibly sent out of the State.
She said the party's youth leaders had been prepared to take every risk and were determined to go to Lal Chowk to fly the tricolour there despite the Omar Abdullah government saying that it could not give them any protection.
