Kashmir Panch leaders walk out of Rahul meet

In an embarrassment for Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi, the panchayat leaders in Jammu and Kashmir on Friday walked out of a meeting with him.
Expressing their displeasure, the panchayat leaders said that they were angry with the Congress leader as they were not offered anything at the meeting.
Talking to media persons after the fiasco, the Gandhi scion skirted questions on the walkout by the panchayat leaders, but reiterated that he was in Jammu and Kashmir “to build bridges”.
“Hopefully we will be able to build another tunnel…panchayat are not getting the rights they are entitled to,” said Rahul.
The incident comes days after mass resignation of panchayat members in Jammu and Kashmir following the killing of two sarpanchs within a fortnight.
The sarpanch protests have threatened to turn into a major face-off between Rahul, who is on a two-month tour of the state, and Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, though the two have denied any rift.
Rahul had, at a meet in Delhi with a sarpanch delegation from Srinagar, had said that the state government needed to provide greater security to the local village body leaders.
The sarpanch leaders demanded that they be issued gun licences so that they could take care of their own security.
Around 800 sarpanchs have resigned in the last five months in the state. Panchayat polls were held in Kashmir in 2011 after a decade.

(Free Press Kashmir)