New Delhi: Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Thursday called off her first press conference and observed a two-minute silence expressing grief over the deaths of 40 CRPF personnel when a suicide bomber rammed a Scorpio car laden with explosives into a CRPF convoy in Awantipora town of Pulwama district.
Sources said Adil Ahmad Alias Waqas, a resident of Pulwama, was the man driving the car that rammed the 55-seater CRPF bus. Such a car bomb suicide attack is happening after several years.
The press conference was meant to wrap up her four-day visit to the state, the first after being appointed in-charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.
"This conference was called for political discussions. But when our jawans have been killed in a terror attack in Pulwama, I feel it would not be right if we have political discussions at this time," she told reporters at the press conference venue.
"I can very well understand the pain and grief of losing a loved one in the family. I want to say that not only the Congress party but the entire country is standing shoulder to shoulder with the families of our brave soldiers. But we must also reflect and be concerned about the high number of casualties in Kashmir. We demand that this government take concrete steps to ensure such terror attacks don’t happen in the future," she said.
The Congress leader has held a series of discussions with party workers over the past four days, with at least one session lasting through the night.
The Congress is trying to revive itself in the state where it faces a challenge from the Bharatiya Janata Party as well as an alliance of Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party.
Although the new AICC general secretary has faced the press briefly in recent days, this was slated to be her first formal interaction.
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