Srinagar: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said revocation of Article 370 played a pivotal role in paving way for growth and development in Jammu and Kashmir. The Prime Minister launched multiple projects worth over ₹ 32,500 crore for J&K and projects worth ₹13,500 crore for other parts of the country. Later, in a post on X, the Prime Minister said, “A remarkable day for Jammu and Kashmir! Launching initiatives which will propel holistic development in the region.”
While ddressing a public rally in Jammu’s Maulana Azad Stadium, the Prime Minister highlighted the development and growth in the region post-Article 370 abrogation. He said, “Article 370 was a wall built to prevent the development of Jammu and Kashmir. The BJP government razed this wall and now we see a new Jammu and Kashmir burgeoning”, while adding, “It is because Article 370 has gone that we are able to ask the people to take the BJP beyond 370 and help the NDA get 400 seats this time (in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections)”.
Asserting that a developed India means a developed J&K, Modi said, “During my visits abroad I found there is positivity about the development taking place in J&K post-Article 370. The G20 events held in the region stirred a lot of enthusiasm in the world and everyone wants to visit this place,” he said.
Expressing happiness over the government reaching people’s doorsteps in J&K, Modi said, “Yehi to Modi ki guarantee hai, yehi to kamal (BJP’s logo) ka kamal hai”.
While assuring to develop Kashmir Valley in the next five years, Modi said in 2023, more than two crore tourists visited J&K and the number of pilgrims to Mata Vaishno Devi and Amarnath shrines too has increased manifold in the past one decade. In the next five years the Kashmir Valley will develop in such a way that the people will forget visiting Switzerland.”
Modi also interacted with the beneficiaries of various government schemes including two women, who were present on the occasion, and through video conferencing with a woman and two men in far off Poonch, Pulwama and Bandipore districts.
While speaking to the woman entrepreneur from J&K’s Kishtwar region, Modi said that his dream is to make as many as thirty million women of the country ‘Lakhpati didis (millionaire sisters)’.
“After hearing about your success story, those who while living in air conditioned rooms in Delhi keep slinging mud would be finding it difficult to grasp how someone can become a ‘lakhpathi didi’ like that,” he remarked. The Prime Minister also distributed appointment letters to about 1,500 newly recruited government employees as part of the “Viksit Bharat, Viksit Jammu” programme.
Promising the people of J&K that all their dreams that had been “stalled” for over seven decades will come true in the next few years, the Prime Minister said that earlier only depressing news would tumble out of J&K, but now the region is developing and moving forward. “For decades, only the news about bomb blasts, gunfights and kidnappings would come out of Jammu and Kashmir disappointing the countrymen, but now it is moving forward. I have full faith in you, and we will make vikshit (developed) Jammu and Kashmir,” he said.
Taking an indirect dig at National Conference, People’s Democratic Party and the Congress which stayed in power in J&K for most of the time after Independence, the Prime Minister said, “Jammu and Kashmir suffered because of dynastic politics for decades. Dynastic politics works only for those who are part of it…they are only concerned about their families, not about your interests, your families. They do not work out any schemes that could help the poor and other needy. The worst sufferers of this selfishness and vested interest are the youth of a place. I am satisfied and happy that Jammu and Kashmir is getting freedom from this dynastic politics.”
