Intelligence Bureau prevented me from visiting Sopore MLA's house: Rahul Gandhi

SOPORE(J-K): Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi today said a "last-moment" Intelligence Bureau (IB) advice prevented him from visiting the house of Sopore MLA even as members of his party accused the Jammu and Kashmir government of "sabotaging" his visit.

"This time, the people from IB stopped me from visiting your home. They told me this at the last moment," Rahul told party's MLA from Sopore Abdul Rashid Dar.

"I will visit your house and have tea with you when I visit the state next time," he said.

The Congress Vice President was addressing a party workers convention here during his three-day visit to the state.

State Congress leaders rued that the state government did not allow them to hold the meeting at Dangerpora.

"This meeting was to happen in Dangerpora, where we could have arranged more people. But then we were told that we cannot hold the rally there and instead chose this place. The government was trying to sabotage Rahul's visit," party's state unit's vice president Ghulam Nabi Monga said here.

Monga alleged that the state government pulled down the buntings and hoardings put up by the party's state unit in different parts of the city to welcome Rahul.

"Last night our workers installed banners and hoardings near the airport, they were removed soon after our workers left the area," Monga said, adding "it was done at the behest of the state government".

Terming Congress as an "ideology" spread across the country, Rahul said an ideology can't be removed from peoples' hearts by removing hoardings and buntings.

"It is a thought and this thought is spread all over the country. This thought is in my heart, it is in the hearts of the people of Jammu and Kashmir and in the hearts of the workers of Congress. You want to remove the flags, the posters, do whatever you want, but this thought will never come out of those hearts," he said.