*Calls for equal development of Jammu & Ladakh, justice to KPs
Sanjeev Pargal
MADHOPUR, June 23: Sounding the bugle for 2014 Parliamentary elections, newly appointed BJP Election Campaign Committee chairman and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi today declared that Congress is the “root cause of all problems” faced by the country including Kashmir and called upon the people to ensure rout of this party in the upcoming general elections.
Addressing a mammoth ‘Sankalap Rally’ here, the border of Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab organised jointly by ruling BJP-Shiromani Akali Dal (B) on the occasion of 60th anniversary of Jan Sangh founder Shyama Prasad Mukherjee’s martyrdom, Mr Modi said former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee would have solved Kashmir problem had the NDA been voted back to power in 2004 elections.
Asserting that Kashmir problem was the “creation of Congress” including India’s first Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru, Mr Modi, in his first public meeting after being appointed as BJP’s Election Campaign Committee chairman and after the exit of JD (U) from NDA, called for justice and respect to Kashmiri Pandits, who were forced to leave their houses by the Kashmiri militants in 1989 and equal treatment to Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh regions.
Flanked by bigwigs of BJP and Akali Dal including Punjab Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal, Shanta Kumar, former Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh, Anurag Thakur, BJYM president, Jagat Prakash Nadda, All India general secretary, Avinash Rai Khanna and several MPs and Ministers from Punjab, Mr Modi in his 40 minutes speech, said the “vote bank politics” being pursued by the Congress has become a threat to the country and it was time now to get India rid of Congress in the next Parliamentary elections.
Mr Badal went a step ahead declaring that “second war of independence” has begun under the leadership of Modi and it would end with the wiping out of Congress from the national scene in 2014 elections as the ruling party was responsible for all ills faced by the country including poverty, unemployment, illiteracy etc. He said the SAD-BJP alliance would win all 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab.
Charging Congress-led UPA Government with compromising security interests of the country, Mr Modi said the country was not safe in the hands of the Government, which has two `pradhans’ (chiefs) as the Government did nothing when Sarabjit Singh was killed in Pakistan, when Pakistani Army beheaded two Indian Army jawans in Poonch and took away the head of one of them, when German soldiers killed fishermen in Kerala and when foreign nationals dropped arms in Purulia.
“Instead of taking concrete action, our Government offered `Chicken Biryani’ to then Pakistan Prime Minister (Raja Pervez Ashraf) when he visited Ajmer Sharif while the foreign nationals involved in Purulia arms drop are roaming freely in their country. The Germans involved in the killing of fishermen were brought to India only after the court intervened,” he said.
“The safety and security of the country is not safe in the hands of Congress,” he said and asked: “how one can expect development of the country from such a Government”? Without naming Pakistan, he said even today efforts were being made to create trouble in India by providing foreign aid (to the militants).
There were cheers and huge applause from the crowd when Mr Modi came to the dais and started his address. His address was repeatedly intervened by the crowd, which cheered him and shouted slogans eulogizing him.
Mr Modi talked about the need to “heal the wounds” of Kashmiris and connect its aspiring youths with the national mainstream for the development of the State.
Favouring the doctrine pursued by Mr Vajpayee as the Prime Minister to solve Kashmir problem, the BJP leader said he would work for bringing parties and hearts together and the task left unfinished by the former BJP leader would be pursued if the BJP was voted to power in the next elections.
“Mr Vajpayee had sought to win over the heart of Kashmir with compassion, love and dialogue…Had he been elected to power in 2004, he would have succeeded in his Kashmir policy,” he said, adding that the Kashmiri youths were aspiring for development and progress and they needed to be connected with the national mainstream.
“The youths in Kashmir Valley want to be part of development. Guns can spill blood but will do no good to one’s life,” he said, adding “guns and bombs wouldn’t solve any problem”.
He said, “Atal Bihari Vajpayee played a great role in addressing the Kashmir issue…If NDA would have formed the Government in 2004, the Kashmir issue would have been resolved. Kashmiri Pandits would have got justice. Youth of J&K would have been employed and the State would have seen development.”
He heaped praises on Mr Vajpayee, saying youth employment during present UPA’s rule of over nine years is half of the employment provided by the erstwhile Vajpayee Government during just five years.
Asserting that the youth of Kashmir want to integrate with India and identify themselves with the country, Mr Modi said he came to know only today that 300 girls of Kashmir had gone for studying at Kota, Rajasthan despite scorching heat there leaving the cool environs of Kashmir.
“I urge Kashmiri youth to come forward and develop a link with India for education and professional activities. It’s time to heal wounds of the people of Kashmir. We express resolve that we would be `Ek and Nek’ (one and sincere) from Kashmir to Kanyakumari,” the BJP leader said.
At the same time, he called for equal development of all three regions of J&K including Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh and justice and respect to displaced Kashmiri Pandits. He was referring to oft-repeated stand of the BJP and various other Jammu and Ladakh based organisations of discrimination with the two regions by the successive State Governments.
Without referring to NC-Congress coalition Government in Jammu and Kashmir, Mr Modi said the Kashmiri youth were crying for `roji, roti’ (jobs and food) but the politicians were not worried about their progress.
“There is only vote-bank politics going on over Kashmir. It was only Mr Vajpayee, who had made a sincere attempt to resolve the Kashmir problem by extending hand of friendship to Pakistan but he was also back-stabbed by some vested interests by planning Kargil,” he said and declared that the BJP would solve the problem of Kashmir based on Vajpayee’s doctrine.
Recalling the history of India’s partition, Mr Modi said it was Sardar Patel, who united India but Kashmir remained a problem due to “follies” of first Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru. He said the first Government of India functioned due to ability of Sardar Patel, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee and Bhim Rao Ambedkar but after their deaths or exit, it started taking “wrong and bad decisions”.
Invoking Mukherjee’s slogan against two heads (pradhans) in one system, he said a similar situation exists today, referring to Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh. “There are two bosses in the country and we do not know who of the two is genuine. It must be ours and everyone’s dream to rid the country of the two (Singh and Sonia),” he scoffed.
“The country had “two bosses” and one does not know who is “genuine”, he said and asked the people to get rid of the Congress-led UPA Government saying the country cannot afford to see them remain in power any more.
“Your (people’s) future is not safe in their hands…We cannot play with the future of our youth”, he said.
“It has become difficult to identify that who is running the country,” he said, apparently referring to the Prime Minister and the Congress President.
Speaking of the rapid slide in the rupees’ value against dollar, he said Congress was competing with rupees as to who could fall more.
Asking the people to vote out the Congress-led UPA Government, Modi said, “Your (people’s) future is not safe in their hands…We cannot play with the future of our youth”.
He also took a dig at the advertising campaign run by the UPA Government on various TV channels on flagship Bharat Nirman programme to highlight its achievements.
“The advertisement said ‘bharat ke nirman pe haq hai mera’ (I have a right to India’s development). I said ‘bharat nirman pe shaq hai mera’ (I have doubt over India’s development),” he said taking dig at the UPA Government amidst cheers from the crowd. He claims that the advertisements, on which the UPA Government spent hundreds of crores of rupees, were stopped after his statement.
Mr Modi, who had only yesterday visited flood ravaged Uttarakhand, said he was saddened by the plight of the people but added that the people of the country were behind those who had been devastated by the natural tragedy.
He had reached out to the people affected by the calamity saying, “I felt the grief after listening to painful tales of survivors rescued from Uttarakhand.”
He said Shyama Prasad Mukherjee had in 1943 organised a movement to serve over 50,000 people of Bengal, who were facing starvation. “We will organise a similar campaign for flood hit people of Uttarakhand,” he declared.
Paying tributes to Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, who had died under mysterious circumstances on this day in a Kashmir jail 60 years ago while trying to enter Jammu and Kashmir without a permit to stress for complete integration of Jammu and Kashmir with rest of India, Mr Modi charged the then Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru with doing nothing to investigate the death of the great Indian leader.
Quoting the letter written by Mukherjee’s mother to Nehru, Mr Modi said Shyama Prasad was only 51 years of age and had no ailment when he had embarked on his journey to Kashmir to enter the State without permit in May 1953.
“Mukherjee was arrested at this place (where I am addressing the rally today). He was hale and hearty. Within one month and a week, he died in the Kashmir jail. What happened to him? How he died? His mother wanted to ask these questions from Nehru but the latter failed to pursue the matter,” Mr Modi recalled.
He recalled the bonds he shared with Punjab, which was formed when he was here as BJP’s in-charge for Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. He also mentioned his close relationship with the Punjab Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal
Mr Modi said he had worked closely with Mr Badal and Mr Balram Dass Tandon of Punjab, former Deputy Prime Minister, late Devi Lal, former Haryana Chief Minister, late Bansi Lal and National Conference president Dr Farooq Abdullah, presently a Union Minister in the UPA Government when he was part of the NDA.
He told the crowd that the slogan of ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ should be shouted with such a massive voice that it was heard in the hills of Kashmir Valley.
Mr Modi said 65 per cent youths in the country were below the age of 35 years and they were eagerly awaiting job opportunities for them. “We have to think of them. If the jobs were not generated, the youths could get disenchanted,” he said.
The BJP leader said Mukherjee was first martyr of independent India and his mother had stated that he didn’t die but was killed.
Charging the Congress with not recognizing the martyrdom of Mukherjee, Mr Modi said it was habit with the Congress that they didn’t consider “non-Congress people” as freedom fighters and martyrs despite recognition of their sacrifices by the country.
Jan Sangh founder Shyama Prasad Mukherjee had held his last public meeting here in 1953 before entering Jammu and Kashmir without a permit, which was mandatory then. He was arrested and died in detention on June 23, 1953.
The 18-feet-high statue of Mukherjee was unveiled by senior BJP leader L K Advani and RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat on March 20, 2010 and the venue was named ‘Ekta Sthal’. Mr Modi paid tributes at the status of Mukherjee before coming to the venue of today’s ‘Sankalap Rally’.
BJP senior leader and former Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh Shanta Kumar recalled his association with Shyama Prasad Mukherjee saying he was just 19 when he had led the group from Kangra to join Mukherjee and cross into Jammu and Kashmir without a permit.
BJP’s Incharge for Jammu and Kashmir Avinash Rai Khanna, an MP from Punjab also raised the issue of killing of Chamel Singh of Pargwal, Akhnoor, who was killed in Lahore jail of Pakistan and charged the Centre and the State Governments with doing nothing for the family of Chamel.
Several senior leaders of BJP from Punjab and Himachal Pradesh including Ministers, MPs also addressed the rally.
BJP leaders from the State including Jugal Kishore, Ashok Khajuria, Dr Nirmal Singh, Dr Jitendera Singh, Shamsher Singh, Chander Prakash Ganga and BJYM president Ravinder Raina also attended the rally.
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