Srinagar: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh Sunday urged residents of Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) to come and join India as "we consider you as our own unlike Pakistan which treats you as foreigners.”
“Recently, the Additional Solicitor General of Pakistan presented a resolution in a court where PoK residents were described as foreigners. I want to tell them that the government of India believes they are our citizens,” he said while addressing an election rally in Ramban district of Jammu.
While welcoming the “sea change” in the overall security situation in Jammu and Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019, he said, “We will make J&K a model state in next ten years if voted to power.”
“There will be so much development that the people in PoK on seeing this should say that we do not want to live with Pakistan and instead will go to India,” the defence minister said.
Rajnath’s visit as a star campaigner of the BJP comes a day after Home Minister Amit Shah concluded a two-day tour during which he released the party's manifesto.
The Defence Minister said that it would be a historic election as the entire country is keenly watching it. “I was recently in the USA and some NRIs asked me what would be the fate of the polls in J&K, I categorically told them that it would be the BJP government in J&K,” Singh said.
“Not just NRIs, but the people across the globe are watching the J&K elections,” he said and asked people to give the BJP a chance to serve them for the next ten years. “You will see a new J&K if BJP comes to power here.”
Without naming People’s Democratic Party president and former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, the Defence Minister said that some people used to claim that the entire J&K would be on fire if Article 370 is touched. “We rolled it back but not a single bullet was fired. Rather, a peaceful atmosphere is prevailing in the entire J&K,” he said.
Taking a dig at the National Conference, Singh said that this party claims restoration of Article 370. “I want to tell them that no power on earth can bring back Article 370 till BJP is there,” he said.
While lashing out at National Conference leader and former chief minister Omar Abdullah, the Defence Minister said, “I heard that Omar sahab said that (Parliament attack convict) Afzal Guru should not have been hanged. I want to ask him that if Afzal Guru should not have been hanged, should he have been garlanded publicly.”
He said when a Parliamentarian delegation was sent to Kashmir to talk to separatists in 2016, “doors were closed for them.”