You must’ve seen Pakistan crying for first time: PM

GANDHINAGAR: Campaigning in his home state on Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said his “grooming” in Gujarat made him stand firm during the Dokalam standoff with China in 2017 and that his government had managed to restrict terrorism to only two and a half districts of J&K while pushing Pakistan PM to publicly urge him to pick up the phone.

“This is not an election rally for me, but a rally to say thanks to people of Gujarat for the grooming I received here,” Modi said in Amreli. He said while in the past bomb blasts used to happen at regular intervals – be it in Pune, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Varanasi and Jammu – there wasn’t a single blast outside J&K in the past five years. “Terrorism has been contained to only two and a half districts of J&K,” he said.

Referring to the Balakot air strike, Modi said, “They (Pakistan) forgot that this is Modi... For the first time, you must have seen Pakistan crying. They were urging Modi to pick up the phone...” He blamed policies of the erstwhile Congress governments for the Kashmir issue remaining unresolved and slammed the party for not taking any action after the 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai. “Weren’t you all angry at that time? But, do you think the Congress has improved now? Can we trust the Congress?” Modi said. “Am I responsible for the present situation in Kashmir? Just because of the policies of Congress, we could not solve the Kashmir issue even after 70 years.” Without naming Congress candidate Paresh Dhanani, whose comments on the Sardar Patel statue had sparked a row, Modi said, “I did not make the statue of Sardar to show Pandit Nehru down. Sardar was so tall that there is no reason to toil to show someone else down.”