New Delhi: Congress president Rahul Gandhi said that Jammu and Kashmir was on fire while reiterating his allegations over issues like the Rafale deal. Gandhi blamed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for escalating violence and the killings of soldiers in militant attacks in north Indian state. In his address to a public meeting in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh’s Ujjain.

The BJP rejected his allegations and asked Gandhi to explain Madhya Pradesh’s backwardness under the Congress rule. Gandhi cited his meeting with ex-servicemen on Saturday and said they blamed Modi for the killings of jawans and for the situation in Jammu and Kashmir.

“Wherever prime minister goes, he talks about (the September 2016 ) surgical strike (against militant launch pads across the Line of Control in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir), the army, the air force, and the navy. But what did he do for those who took part in the surgical strike and also what did he do for soldiers…?” he asked at the meeting on the first day of his two-day visit to Madhya Pradesh’s Malwa-Nimad region.

Gandhi, who earlier began his election campaign after performing a puja at Ujjain’s Mahakal temple, said the ex-servicemen denied Modi’s claims that one rank, one pension for the equity in post-retirement benefits had been implemented.

He attacked Modi and Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan for “prevalent corruption in the system” and the “collapse of panchayat raj institutions”.

Gandhi said an old Ujjain woman was jailed as she could not pay an inflated Rs one lakh electricity bill. But people like liquor baron Vijay Mallya, businessmen Mehul Choksi and Nirva Modi escaped from the country with thousands of crores.