Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir will get the statehood, and time is not far when Assembly elections will be held here and people will be able to share their dreams and problems with their MLAs and ministers.

Modi was addressing a largely attended election rally in Udhampur in favour of BJP candidates — Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh and Jammu MP Jugal Kishore.

The PM said, ”This election is not just to elect MPs but this is the election to form a strong government in the country. When the government is strong, it governs by challenging the challenges.”

Referring to the confidence that has been built among the people of J&K in the past ten years, the PM said “Modi thinks far ahead. What has happened so far is just a trailer. I have to get busy, creating a wonderful picture of a new Jammu and Kashmir.

”This is the first time when terrorism, separatism, stone-pelting and cross border shelling and firing are not the election issues. It used to make headline in newspapers if a day passed peacefully in J&K. The situation has changed and confidence for the government has been built,” Modi said.

“I had told you to trust me and I will solve the problems you have been facing for the past 60 years. I had guaranteed dignity for the mothers and sisters here. I gave a guarantee that the poor would not have to worry about two meals a day. Today, lakhs of families of Jammu and Kashmir have the guarantee of free ration for the next five years.”

Modi said that the weak Congress governments kept the Shahpur-Kandi Dam project stalled for decades and the waters of the Ravi kept flowing to Pakistan while the fields of the farmers in the arid Kathua and Samba districts remained barren.

“Modi has given the guarantee to the farmers of diverting the Ravi waters to their fields and has fulfilled it. The electricity generated from the Dam will also benefit the people of J&K”.

Hitting out at the Congress and other dynastic parties, Modi said: ”For the sake of power, they built a wall of Article 370 but due to your blessings, Modi demolished not only the wall but also restored the dignity of women here. These parties want to take Jammu and Kashmir back to the old days. No one has caused as much damage to Jammu and Kashmir as these family-run parties have done. Here political party means the family, by the family and for the family.”

”I challenge any political party, especially the Congress, to announce that they will restore Article 370. This country will not even look at them,” he pointed out.

Modi said that the Ram Mandir is not an election issue for the BJP. ”The struggle for the Ram Mandir was going on for the past over 500 years even before the birth of the BJP. When the Mughal invaders destroyed our temples, people fought to save the religious places. Congress leaders and their allies lived in sprawling bungalows but never bothered to replace the leaking tents of Ram Lalla,” he stated.

The last assembly elections were held in 2014, which threw a fractured mandate. In August 2019, the Centre revoked J&K’s semi-autonomous position under Article 370 of the Constitution and President’s rule was imposed. Since then, no assembly election has been held in the new Union Territory.