Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said on Wednesday that the government’s decision to revoke special status for Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution was “drama” designed to divert people’s attention from pressing problems in the country.

“The people will one day understand that all this is being done because the government has totally failed on all the fronts,” Azad told The Indian Express in an interview. “Two, three years later, the people will come to know all this was drama to divert their attention from the real issues, like growing unemployment, economic crisis….industry after industry is getting closed down.”

The government had on August 5 revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, and bifurcated the state into two Union territories.

Azad said it was stupid for Pakistan to mention in its letter to the United Nations that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had said that people were dying in Kashmir. “Rahul Gandhi has already made it clear what he actually meant,” Azad said. “I totally dismiss what Pakistan has mentioned in its petition. But the fact of the matter is that the whole world knows that Jammu and Kashmir is out of bounds for everybody, including a person like me who belongs to that state and is an MP from that state.”

Azad said this shows that there is something wrong in the Kashmir Valley, which the government wants to conceal. “Had everything been fine, they should have allowed the leaders of at least mainstream political parties [to visit],” he said. He said mainstream Kashmiri parties like the National Conference and Peoples Democratic Party have in the past helped the government improve the situation.

The Congress leader also alleged that while the Bharatiya Janata Party cadre has been allowed to campaign in Jammu for the upcoming Assembly elections, the Congress has been prevented from doing so. He also said it has not been possible to find out how many Congress leaders have been put under detention in Jammu and Kashmir.

Azad bemoaned the fact that Communist Party of India (Marxist) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury had to approach the Supreme Court to be able to visit Srinagar to meet his ailing party colleague Mohammad Tarigami. “At least the Supreme Court has risen to the occasion and shown some sympathy towards individual and personal freedom,” he said.

Azad himself was stopped from entering the state earlier this month.

Azad said that going by hearsay, the situation is “very horrifying” in Jammu and Kashmir. “I would like to see it for myself…that we will come to know once the restrictions are lifted...in these four weeks…how much the people have been harmed by security forces, may be the local police or other security forces,” he said. The Congress leader alleged that the state would not have been in lockdown for four weeks if there was no anger against the decision to scrap special status.

Asked about younger Congress leaders like Jyotiraditya Scindia backing the government’s decision, Azad told The Indian Express they do not know the history of Jammu and Kashmir. “They go by what the government is saying on the television,” he said. “So much lies have been said. For instance, it is said that there is no panchayati Raj in J&K…it is there since 1952.”