Srinagar: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday reiterated his government’s commitment to restoring statehood to Jammu and Kashmir and alleged that Pakistan was very happy seeing the manifestos of Congress and National Conference for the Assembly election in the Union Territory (UT).
In his second visit to poll-bound Jammu and Kashmir in less than a week, Modi while addressing an election rally in Srinagar, affirmed that the BJP will fulfill its commitment to restore the region’s statehood.
“We have promised in Parliament that we will restore J&K's statehood and we will fulfill this commitment. I want to tell you that only a BJP-led government can restore statehood to J&K,” he said.
The Prime Minister accused the Opposition parties of trying to do Pakistan's bidding by claiming to revoke Article 370 if they come to power. “They (Opposition) are saying that they will bring back Article 370 here. They want to bring back the era of bloodshed,” Modi said.
He claimed that Pakistan seems happy with the manifesto of the Congress and the National Conference. “Pakistan's Defence Minister has openly supported it. The agenda of Congress and NC is the same as that of Pakistan,” he added.
Modi was reacting to Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Asif's remark where he said that the Shehbaz Sharif government and the Congress-National Conference alliance were on the same page on the issue of restoration of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir.
Modi said if BJP comes to power in J&K, instead of the present Rs 6000, farmers would get Rs 7000 annually in their accounts, elderly women head of family would get Rs 18,000 each year, through PM Surya Ghar scheme J&K would get 24-hour free electricity. Rs 80,000 to every household free for installing solar power systems and by this, on an average, each household would save Rs 25,000 on electric power tariff per year, he said.