Srinagar: In a direct attack at Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his election speech in poll-bound Jammu and Kashmir, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge Wednesday announced five guarantees, if the Congress-NC alliance is voted to power in the Union territory.
Kharge reiterated the Congress's commitment to restoring Jammu and Kashmir's statehood and criticized the current conditions in the Union Territory.
He outlined the following guarantees: interest-free loans of ₹500,000 for women entrepreneurs, ₹25 lakh health insurance for each household, ₹3,000 monthly for women heads of families, 11 kg of grains per person through the public distribution system, and the fulfillment of the rehabilitation promise for Kashmiri Pandit migrants made during Manmohan Singh's tenure.
Speaking at an election rally in Anantnag, Kharge also pledged to uphold the rights of Other Backward Classes (OBCs) as per the Constitution. He criticized the BJP-led central government for leaving one lakh job vacancies unfilled, accusing them of intentionally keeping the people of Jammu and Kashmir impoverished.
He promised that they will focus on tourism and manufacturing and will reopen more than 4,400 government schools which have been closed in the past several years. The Congress president also promised to restore a bi-cameral legislature in the Union territory.
He launched a fierce attack on Modi, claiming that with just 20 more seats in Parliament, Modi and his allies would have been in jail, and mocked the BJP's current position by questioning, “Where is your ‘400 paar’ now? You're stuck at 240," implying that the BJP is now clinging to power with a “minority government.”
He was referring to the performance of the Opposition alliance, or I.N.D.I.A., which won 234 of the 543 Lok Sabha seats. The BJP, which had set an ambitious target of 400 seats, stopped at 240, 32 short of the majority mark and down by 63 in comparison with its 2019 tally.
The Congress and NC have forged a pre-poll alliance for the 90-seat Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections, which will take place in three phases on September 18, September 25, and October 1. The results will be announced on October 8.
Published 11 September 2024, 13:15 IST