Modi accused the Opposition of having deprived the UT’s people of their rights and said the decision to strip the region of its statehood was only temporary.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday accused the Congress, National Conference (NC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of inflicting wounds on the people as he addressed his final rally on the penultimate day of campaigning for Jammu and Kashmir’s first assembly polls in a decade.
Speaking in Jammu, Modi accused the Opposition of having deprived the UT’s people of their rights and said that the decision to strip the region of its statehood was only temporary.
“In the past 60 to 65 years, this region witnessed only destruction… Leave aside development, every sphere of life suffered. Modi is working sincerely to fill up all those pits of the past and will not leave any opportunity to address your issues,” he said.
“BJP is the only party which will restore statehood to the region,” he added.
The PM asked the people of Jammu to grab the opportunity to “end discrimination” meted out to the region for decades. “I want to tell the people of city of temples not to let this opportunity go away. The BJP government alone would end the discrimination to Jammu region,” he said.
After a contentious delimitation exercise, Hindu-majority Jammu has 43 seats and Muslim-majority Kashmir has 47 in the 90-member legislative assembly. Before delimitation, Kashmir had 46 seats compared to Jammu’s 37.
Modi was speaking ahead of the third and final phase of assembly elections in the restive region on October 1, when 40 seats – 24 in Jammu and 16 in Kashmir – go to the polls. The votes will be counted on October 8.
The Bharatiya Janata Party is fighting on all of the 43 seats in Jammu and 19 of the 47 seats in Kashmir.
Escalating his attack, the prime minister said the Congress-NC alliance and the PDP were irked by the changes in Jammu and Kashmir because they did not like development.
“They are saying they will form the government to revive the old system – the same discriminatory approach which led Jammu to be the biggest sufferer,” he added.
Modi said the Jammu region in particular faced “decades of injustice” at the hands of the three parties which not only defamed the Dogra legacy but also their rulers.
He also called them the biggest enemy of the Constitution. “They strangled the Constitution given by Babasaheb Ambedkar.” he said.
In the speech a little over 40 minutes, Modi highlighted “peace” on the borders with Pakistan and “overall development” in Jammu and Kashmir since 2014. He also invoked India’s surgical strike on terror camps across the Line of Control (LoC) in 2016 and termed the elections an opportunity for Jammu to end discrimination.