Congress kept Ayodhya, J&K pending for votes: Narendra Modi

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has alleged Congress ‘delayed in resolving’ the Kashmir and Ayodhya disputes.

Addressing assembly election rallies in Jharkhand’s Daltonganj and Gumla on Monday Modi alleged “Congress follows the policy of delaying so that it can keep collecting votes. The party kept the issue over Article 370 pending. We promised to resolve it and we fulfilled it. The Ram Janmabhoomi dispute in Ayodhya had lingered for decades. The Congress could have resolved it but chose to hurt society and country to protect its vote bank. Today the dispute stands resolved.”

“We have a list of fulfilled promises while the Opposition has mere announcements.” Modi alleged previous state governments used Maoist issues for political benefit. “In the last five years, the BJP government at the Centre and the state have taken coordinated steps to solve the problem. We also made efforts to bring the youth who joined Maoist groups to return to mainstream.” He urged the people to vote for the BJP to ‘break the backbone’ of Maoists and usher an era of development.


Modi said that BJP and its government were committed to protecting tribal rights on water, forests and land. A district mineral fund has been set up to ensure that mining royalty in tribal areas went to tribals. Jharkhand has received Rs 5,000 crore from the fund, he said, adding steps were taken to fasttrack settlement of claims over forest rights. Daltonganj and Gumla are tribal dominated regions and go to polls on Saturday.

The PM said that it was the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government which created Jharkhand and set up a ministry to exclusively handle tribal welfare. He praised the Raghubar Das government saying that it had worked for the state’s development.

The election to 81seats have been divided into five phases. Modi is set to address two rallies in each phase. Party president Amit Shah to will hold 10 rallies. Counting of votes will be on December 23.