In Samba, PM rakes up bias against Jammu

Dinesh Manhotra/Amit Khajuria

Tribune News Service

Raya Morh (Samba), Dec 8

After avoiding contentious issues on his previous poll visits in the state, Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the first time today raked up the issue of discrimination with the Jammu region.

The PM also tried to strike an emotional chord with the people of the region by invoking Dogra legends Pandit Prem Nath Dogra and country’s first Param Vir Chakra (PVC) recipient Brigadier Rajinder Singh.

Addressing the election rally at Vijaypur’s Raya Morh, a couple of kilometres from Baguna village, the birth place of Brig Rajinder Singh, Modi seized the opportunity to recall the supreme sacrifice of the great Dogra warrior who attainted martyrdom while fighting Pakistani intruders in 1947.

“I salute the great warrior who had sacrificed his life for the nation,” Modi said.

Although the Prime Minister tried to avoid the issue of Article 370, he reaffirmed his party’s commitment to follow the basic ideology of the BJP and its erstwhile avatar the Jan Sangh while recalling Pandit Prem Nath Dogra.

“Pandit Prem Nath Dogra is still a source of inspiration for me and lakhs of BJP workers,” Modi said while paying tributes to the founder of the Praja Parishad in Jammu and Kashmir, which was later merged with the Jan Sangh.

Smailpur, the native place of Pandit Prem Nath Dogra, is a part of the Vijaypur Assembly constituency and Modi availed the opportunity to give a veiled message to the people that his party was still committed to its basic ideology.

Earlier, BJP candidate for Vijaypur seat Chander Parkash Ganga felicitated Narendra Modi with a traditional Dogra turban.

For the first time during his election campaign for the Assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir Modi raked up the issue of discrimination with the Jammu region.

“People of Jammu want water for irrigation, jobs, food security, but the Congress, the NC and the PDP failed to provide it to the people of Jammu,” Modi said. “The Jammu region has always been discriminated by the successive state governments.”