New Delhi: Union Home Minister Amit Shah said scrapping Article 370 helped strengthen democracy in Jammu and Kashmir. He said the move sent a clear message to the people of the Valley that they are a part of India.
“Modi ji scrapped Article 370 and sent a message to Valley that you are a part of India and India belongs to you, you belong to India. I believe because of this the foundation of democracy got stronger, and not just Lok Sabha polls even panchayat polls there was 90 per cent voting. I believe it is a huge achievement and every Indian should welcome this,” Shah said in an interview with NDTV.
Elaborating, Shah said that the BJP government has been so successful in the region that even members of separatist organizations are now casting their votes.
“Some people of Jamaat e-Islami and Hurriyat voted and said they voted under the Indian Constitution since there is no J&K Constitution. Jammu and Kashmir is now under the Indian Constitution, so I believe Narendra Modi’s Kashmir policy was successful. For so many years, Kashmir was being governed through appeasement politics but not anymore,” the Home Minister said.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is hoping to win a third consecutive term. The last phase of polling for the Lok Sabha elections will be held on June 1, and results will be declared on June 4.
To a question about BJP’s pitch of winning 400+ seats, Shah said, “When we won the 2014 elections under Narendra Modi’s leadership on the slogan of absolute majority, many political analysts from Delhi had said this was not possible. But we got the absolute majority. Then, in 2019, when we gave the slogan of ‘300 plus’, people said it was not possible. People are saying the same this time. But I think they will believe us in the next election before ‘400 par’ is happening this time.”
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Article 370 was the “agenda of 4-5 families” in Jammu and Kashmir.
In an interview with news agency ANI, PM Narendra Modi talked about the abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir, and its impact on the union territory.
Modi said that Article 370 was never an agenda for the people of Jammu and Kashmir or the country’s people. He added that the wall of Article 370 was built in Kashmir for the benefit of just 4-5 families.
“Article 370 was the agenda of only 4-5 families, it was neither the agenda of the people of Kashmir nor the agenda of the people of the country. For their benefit, they had built such a wall of 370 and used to say that if 370 is removed, there will be a fire,” Modi said in the interview.
“Today, it has become true that after the removal of 370, there is a feeling of more unity. The feeling of belongingness is increasing among the people of Kashmir and hence its direct result is also visible in elections, tourism…” he added.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that he has had to shut down the internet in Kashmir to implement certain strategies to run the government after the abrogation of Article 370.
“I want to tell the justice system of our country that if the government has a design and strategy to do some work. To solve such problems, work had to be done using that strategy. Sometimes I had to shut down the internet for that. Due to this, an NGO went to court and it became a big legal issue… It is very important to save the country from such NGOs,” PM Modi said.
He further said: “Today, the children there proudly say that the internet has not been shut down for the last five years and we have been getting all the facilities for the last 5 years. There was some pain for a few days but it was for a good cause.”
