The assembly polls in J&K will be held with “full transparency” after the Election Commission publishes the final voter list, Union home minister Amit Shah said at a public rally in north Kashmir’s Baramulla, where he asserted that the Narendra Modi government will wipe out terrorism from the region and there will be no dialogue with Pakistan.
On the final day of his three-day visit to the Union territory, Shah lashed out at “Abdullah and Sons” and “Mufti and Co” - referring to the National Conference and PDP leadership - for the loss of "42,000 lives in three decades" after Pakistan-backed separatist terrorism erupted in J&K in the 1990s. “There are some people who have ruled for the past 70 years and are advising me to talk to Pakistan. But I have a clear mandate. I don’t want to talk to Pakistan, I want to talk to the people of Jammu & Kashmir,” he said.
He said the J&K assembly elections will be announced as and when the revised electoral rolls are out, adding that “…elections will be conducted with full transparency and your own elected representatives will govern here”. He reaffirmed that democracy has reached the grassroots under the leadership of PM Modi. He repeated what he said at his rally in Rajouri that power in J&K rested with “three families” before, but “30,000 elected representatives of panchayat and district councils are now part of the governance process”.
He blamed the Abdullah, Mufti and Nehru-Gandhi (Congress) families for the “lack of development” in J&K. “They looted J&K’s resources for their personal gain and did nothing for the common man,” he said, alleging poor governance and corruption when they were in office.
He said £5.6 billion investment came to J&K over the past three years, as opposed to £1.7 billion before 2019. “I want to ask Farooq Abdullah Sahab and Mehooba Muftiji to give an account of how much investment came during their rule of 70 years. How many industries were set up? How many factories? How many youths got jobs?” J&K doesn’t have an anti-corruption bureau when all states have one because the “three families” stalled it, he alleged. Shah then paused his speech during azaan from a mosque close to Showkat Ali Stadium where the rally was held. He urged Kashmiri youths to stay off the path of violence, saying it has never benefited anyone. PM Modi has almost stamped out terrorism from J&K, he said, and the results showed in the tourist footfall.
