Ballabgarh (Haryana): Launching a broadside against the Congress, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday asked the opposition party to explain “its love” for Article 370 to the families of security personnel martyred in Jammu and Kashmir.
Addressing his first of four election rallies in Haryana, he said the opposition was shedding “crocodile tears” and challenged the Congress to tell people that it will rescind the Modi Government’s decision on J-K if voted to power.
After it swept the Lok Sabha polls, the BJP has again made nationalism its major poll plank in upcoming assembly elections, which will be the first in the country after the Centre’s decision to scrap special status to J-K on August 5.
Asserting that India is now taking big decisions like on Article 370 which were unthinkable earlier, the prime minister said the massive mandate from the people gave him the strength to take the step which, he asserted, has the backing of the entire country.
“India is taking big decisions, which no one could think of earlier. Which decision am I talking about? This decision on Article 370,” he said.
Modi said there was feeling in Haryana and the entire country that J&K needs to be pulled out of spiral of violence and put on path of development.
Modi accused the opposition parties of politicising the issue of Article 370.
Training guns on opposition, he said “because of their love for Article 370 mothers lost their brave sons and young women were widowed”.
“The brave jawan of Haryana who was protecting innocent citizens of J&K, who fell to bullet of terrorists and when his body came back wrapped in tricolour, ask those mothers how many sons-of-soil lost lives because of your love for Article 370… ask how many were widowed and how many children were orphaned,” he said.
“Those who lost their dear ones for peace in J&K, Congress leaders must tell them why they love Article 370 so much. They must tell in what way this Article benefited the state,” the prime minister added. (PTI)
