Agencies

Chatra/Garhwa (Jharkhand), November 28:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set off the process of extirpating terrorism from the country by scrapping Articles 370 and 35A that gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir, BJP president Amit Shah said on Thursday.

Addressing poll rallies at Chatra and Garhwa in Jharkhand, he also attacked the Congress-JMM alliance, saying those who sought a separate Jharkhand state and those who opposed it have come together for the assembly polls as part of an ‘opportunistic’ coalition.

He targeted the Congress party over alleged delay in resolving the Kashmir problem and the vexed Ayodhya dispute for ‘vote bank politics’.

Shah, the Union Home Minister, also credited the BJP government led by Raghubar Das for uprooting Naxalism, asserting the menace has been buried ’20 feet under the earth’.

‘The Congress had not touched Articles 370 and 35A for the sake of vote bank politics. When you gave more than 300 seats to Modiji (the prime minister), he rooted it out.

‘By scrapping Articles 370 and 35A, Modiji has set of the process of extirpating terrorism from the country,’ he asserted.

The BJP president, on the second leg of his campaign for the state assembly polls, asked voters to elect a government with an absolute majority as unstable dispensations were not in the state’s interest.

‘Hemant Soren (the JMM leader) and the Congress party have formed an opportunistic alliance in Jharkhand. Those who sought creation of Jharkhand and those who opposed it are together merely because of their lust for power,’ Shah said.

‘I want to ask Hemant Ji (Soren), what will your answer be to the parents of hundreds of youth who sacrificed their lives for statehood? You are sitting in the laps of the same Congress for power whose governments fired upon these youths,’ he told an election rally in Garhwa.

Reaffirming the BJP and the Centre’s commitment to the development of Jharkhand, Shah said while the Congress-led UPA government gave the tribal state only Rs 55,253 crore under the 13th Finance Commission, the BJP-headed NDA dispensation allotted it Rs 3.08 lakh crore between 2014 and 2019.

Making a strong pitch for electing a government with an absolute majority, Shah said, development got impeded under unstable dispensations.

‘Independents used to become chief ministers and sent crores of rupees to Delhi. Jharkhand never saw development under unstable governments,’ he said, apparently referring to Madhu Koda, who helmed the state for some time and got embroiled in financial scandals.

Lauding the current BJP government for tackling the Naxal menance, Shah said ‘Wherever there is peace, there is development. It comes through the ballot and not bullet.’ The BJP chief also raked up the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid issue and blamed the Congress for allowing it to fester.

‘For years, the people of the country wanted Ram temple in Ayodhya, but the Congress wanted the case to be delayed in court and created obstacles,’ he alleged.

He said, if voted to power, the BJP government will ensure piped water supply for every household in the state by 2024.

Shah alleged there was large-scale corruption in Jharkhand when the state was ruled by non-BJP parties.

Raghubar Das, whose government will be the first to complete its five-year term in Jharkhand’s history, gave a clean administration, the BJP chief said, adding there was not a single charge of corruption against it.

He also listed out development schemes launched by the Centre and the state in Jharkhand.

Attacking the previous Congress government headed by Manmohan Singh, Shah said, it remained ‘mute’ when terrorists triggered blasts, and lauded the Modi government for targeting terror camps in Pakistan after Uri and Pulwama attacks.