Srinagar: The Congress party’s policy and planning group on Jammu and Kashmir headed by former Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, on Sunday began a two-day tour Jammu, the winter capital of the restive State.
“The aim of the visit is to read the pulse of the people and take the time to check in with the stakeholders and find out how they are feeling about the issues confronting the State,” said the J&K PCC chief Ghulam Ahmed Mir.
The other members of the group are former J&K Chief Minister and Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, senior party leader Dr. Karan Singh, former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram and the AICC General Secretary Ambika Soni. The group has on it also some senior party functionaries including ministers representing all the three regions of the State-Jammu, the Kashmir Valley and Ladakh.
Mr. Azad said that the group wants to meet different sections of the society to know their viewpoints. “We’re going to talk to anybody and everybody who wishes to share his or her views on the prevailing situation in Jammu and Kashmir,” he said.
However, the group will hold talks with the ‘stakeholders’ in different phases. In Jammu, it will meet people at a guest house on Sunday and Monday and then return to Delhi. The group will return and meet the people in Srinagar on September 17, the party sources said. It will also go to Ladakh later.
In Jammu, it has already met or is scheduled to meet the delegations of Jammu Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Jammu High Court Bar Association, Kashmiri Pandit migrants, Pahadi community, ex-servicemen, the persons displaced by 1947-48, 1965 and 1971 India-Pakistan wars, the border residents apart from those of various political parties.
