New Delhi: Reaching out to displaced Kashmiri Pandits, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday said that he and his family belong to this community, and promised them all help. He also urged his party workers to chant "Jai Mata Di" after paying obeisance to Mata Vaishnodevi temple.
He also accused the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) of trying to break the composite culture of Jammu and Kashmir, and said both the organisations are "ruining" the love and brotherhood that exists among the people of the Union Territory.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is the ideological fount of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government at the Centre.
"I told my Kashmiri Pandit brothers that I will show by helping you. I do not tell lies," Gandhi said while addressing Congress office-bearers and workers at a party function here on the last day of his two-day visit to Jammu.
He also said that he himself belongs to the Kashmiri Pandit community and feels their pain.
"Today morning, a delegation of Kashmiri Pandit brothers had come. When the members of the delegation were talking to me, it came to my mind that I am also a part of this community," Gandhi said.
Taking a dig at BJP-led central government, Gandhi accused it of making false promises to migrant Kashmiri Pandits.
"A delegation of Kashmiri Pandits told me that a promise of providing Rs 25 lakh compensation has not been fulfilled yet. It was the Congress that announced the compensation for the Kashmiri Pandits," he said.
"I had said in Srinagar that whenever I come to Jammu and Kashmir I feel that I have come home. Yesterday, I had gone to offer prayers at the Mata Vaishnodevi temple (in Reasi district) and I felt at home," he said, adding that Jammu and Kashmir, which was a state, but now is a Union Territory, has a very old relation with his family.