‘Your three generations...,’ India’s home minister dares rivals to restore Article 370 in Jammu-Kashmir

India’s Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday (Sep 26) took on the alliance of Congress and National Conference in Jammu and Kashmir and dared them to restore Article 370 in the Union Territory. Shah said that “neither them nor three generations of their family” will be able to restore the scrapped special status of the region. He also accused the alliance of sympathising with terrorism and held them responsible for the deaths of over 40,000 people in the UT.

Shah was addressing a public gathering in Chenani, a town and tehsil in Udhampur district, ahead of the third and final phase of the ongoing assembly polls on October 1.

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"You will all vote not just for Chenani but make a decision for the entire Jammu and Kashmir. After independence, it is for the first time that an election is held here where there is no Article 370 or a separate flag...National Conference and Rahul Baba say that we will bring back Article 370, but I want to tell them that neither you nor the three generations of yours will be able to bring back Article 370," the home minister said.

He also took aim at the three political families of Jammu and Kashmir—“Gandhis”, “Muftis” and “Abdhullas.”

"The three families have given tickets to their own people and made only 87 MLAs. But we made more than 30,000 Panch, Sarpanch and Tehsil Panchayats... The river of corruption that they started was cleaned by Prime Minister Modi from the bottom," Shah added.

"The world is closely watching the Jammu and Kashmir elections, where two vastly different visions are at play. On one hand, the NC, Congress, and PDP parties, perpetuating terrorism in the region for around 40 years, are eyeing for power. On the other hand, the BJP, committed to rooting out terrorism entirely, offers an absolutely contrasting picture," the Bharatiya Janata Party leader said.

Shah’s remarks came a day after the second phase of polling in the UT. Assembly polls are being held in the Jammu and Kashmir after a decade and for the first time after the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019. Ahead of the polls, Congress and National Conference entered into a seat-sharing agreement, where the former is contesting 32 seats and the latter 51.

(With inputs from agencies)