Opportunity for Jammu to end discrimination: PM Modi
PM Modi highlighted peace and development in Jammu and Kashmir since 2014, urging voters to choose BJP for a better future and statehood restoration.
Highlighting “peace” on the borders with Pakistan and “overall development” in Jammu and Kashmir since 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday invoked India’s surgical strike on terror camps across the Line of Control (LoC) this day in 2016 to woo the voters. Addressing a rally in Jammu, he termed it an opportunity for Jammu people to end discrimination besides promising restoration of J&K’s statehood, assuring that making the erstwhile state a Union territory is a “temporary” arrangement.
“In these elections, the people of Jammu and Kashmir would write a new chapter. For the past several decades, Congress, National Conference (NC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leaders and their families thrived while people were ruined,” he said ahead of the third and final phase polling on October 1.
The PM continued his onslaught on the three “dynastic” parties and claimed they brought “miseries and destruction” to the people.
“People don’t want same Nizam (system) again where corruption, nepotism in jobs, terrorism, separatism and bloodshed peaked. People here want peace, they want better future for their children. Therefore, people want BJP government,” he said.
“In the last two phases, there was huge turnout and that gauged the mood of the people, which is in faovur of the BJP,” he asserted.
He went on to say that for the first time a government chosen by the people of Jammu will be in place. Post delimitation exercise, Jammu region has 43 assembly seats and Kashmir has 47 in the 90-member legislative assembly. Prior to delimitation, Kashmir had 46 assembly seats compared to 37 to Jammu.
The PM asked the people of Jammu to grab the opportunity to end discrimination meted out to the region for decades.
“Be it Jammu, Samba or Kathua, only one slogan is renting the air — Jammu Ke yehi pukar aa rahi hai BJP sarkar,” he added.
With opposition parties having made statehood their rallying point, the PM clarified that the BJP government’s decision was temporary. “Only BJP will make it a full state,” he said.
Modi claimed that the Congress today was in the grip of “urban naxals”.
“When illegal immigrants from foreign countries enter India, Congress, for reasons known to it, likes them. They see their vote bank in them but they make fun of their own people,” he said.
Modi described Congress, National Conference, and People’s Democratic Party as “biggest enemies” of the Constitution. “In Jammu, these parties kept several families deprived of voting rights for decades. The BJP honoured the Constitution and ensured voting rights to refugees from West Pakistan and PoK besides Gurkhas and Valmikis,” he said.
Referring to Gujjars, Bakerwals and Paharis, he said the three parties denied ST reservation to them.
Attributing peace on the Pakistan borders to India’s tough posturing since 2014, Modi invoked India’s surgical strike on terror camps across the LoC this day in 2016 to woo the voters. The strike was a response to a terrorist attack on an army base in Uri on September 18, 2016, which left 19 soldiers dead. “The Congress had demanded from our army evidences of the surgical strike and which, till date, talked in tone and tenor of Pakistan on surgical strike. Will you ever forgive such Congress?” he asked.
The PM recalled how areas in Jammu were shelled by Pakistan. “There was a time when huge shelling from across the border was used to be breaking news while the Congress raised white flag. With the BJP government at the Centre, every single bullet was retaliated by bombs,” he said.
He also targeted the Congress for the one rank, one pension issue, recalling that the BJP government implemented it.
The four districts of Jammu, Kathua, Samba and Udhampur have a considerable presence of families which have their families in army.
On October 1, a total of 40 assembly constituencies, including 24 in Jammu, Kathua, Samba and Udhampur districts and 16 in Kashmir, will go to the polls in the final phase.
