Stepping up his attack on Congress and other opposition parties in Maharashtra and Haryana, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday again dared the opposition leaders to declare "if they have guts" in their election manifestos that they would restore provisions of Article 370 and Article 35A in the Constitution if they ever came to power.
Modi alleged that the Congress and other opposition parties were speaking on the lines of the neighbouring country on the issue of Article 370, at a time when the national sentiment is in favour of its revocation.
Modi asked the Congress to explain "its love for Article 370" to the families of security personnel killed in Kashmir during counter-insurgency operations.
He said, "the brave jawan of Haryana, who was protecting the innocent citizens of Kashmir, fell to bullets of terrorists. His body came back home wrapped in national tricolour. Ask those mothers how many sons of the soil lost their lives because of your love for Article 370. Ask how many were widowed and how many children were orphaned."
It is true that Modi can correctly feel the pulse of the people. He takes hard decisions keeping the interests of people in his mind. He also knows how to use, when to use and where to use the outcome of such decisions for political gains. No other contemporary Indian leader has mastered this art better than Modi.
Modi knows that political leaders in the last 70 years clearly lacked the guts to revoke Article 370 giving special status to Jammu and Kashmir. Naturally, under present circumstances, one can ask, which leader has the guts to say that he would work for reversing the revocation of Article 370.
That is why, I say, Modi's decision on Article 370 is historic and irreversible. Such a hard decision was essential to bring the state of Jammu and Kashmir into the national mainstream so that the fruits of development can reach each and every Kashmiri.
Already the results are showing. Youths are turning up in large numbers in police and army recruitment drives, girls are turning up for recruitment as Special Police Officers, and the young Kashmiri generation, which wants peace in the Valley, has for the first time been spared the atmosphere of hopelessness created by the political parties. Article 370 now lies in the dustbin of history, as a painful relic of the past.
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