It must have been an embarrassing situation for the Udhampur Lok Sabha seat’s Congress candidate Vikramaditya Singh when his younger brother Ajaat Shatru welcomed the BJP President Amit Shah on Wednesday by offering him a Dogra turban at the party’s election rally at Udhampur. The Dogra dynasts, Vikramaditya and Ajaat Shatru, are the sons of the veteran Congress leader Dr Karan Singh who is personally steering the election campaign of Vikramaditya.
Ajaat Shatru, a sitting MLC of the BJP, shared the stage with Shah who had come to campaign for the party’s candidate Dr Jitendera Singh, minister of state in the PMO, and grilled Rahul Gandhi, Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti in most part of his speech. The NC and PDP have not fielded their candidates against the Congress on Udhampur and Jammu seats.
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Shah addressed another election rally at Sunderbani that is situated near the Line of Control (LoC) in the Rajouri district that falls under the Jammu Lok Sabha seat. Sitting MP Jugal Kishore Sharma is BJP’s candidate against Raman Bhalla of Congress.
Dwelling upon the long drawn terrorism in J&K, Shah said, “If you choose Narendra Modi government, in next 5 years we’ll oust every single infiltrator from the country. Infiltrators are eating our country like termites. They want to change demography of Jammu. As long as there’s BJP government, we won’t let this happen”.
He said that the IAF’s airstrikes at the terrorist training camps in Pakistan were not being digested by Rahul Gandhi who was raising questions on the issue. Shah asked Rahul Gandhi to clarify whether he supports the demand of his ally and National Conference leader Omar Abdullah for a separate Prime Minister for J&K.
He lambasted the Congress over its stand on the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and warned that nobody can dilute the AFSPA as the Modi government will be standing like a rock in support of the security forces.
Shah said, “The Congress and its leaders should feel ashamed of what they have announced in their manifesto — to dilute AFSPA and withdraw the sedition clause.” He also warned Pakistan, saying if a single bullet comes from there “we will fire shells from here”.
“BJP will not allow anybody to snatch Jammu & Kashmir from India,” Shah said while raising slogans in favour of Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherji, the founder of Jana Sangh, who demanded Kashmir’s integration with India.