Jammu, Mar 4: Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a massive rally at Bakshi Stadium in Srinagar on March 7 will also distribute job letters to youth and interact with beneficiaries of various Government welfare schemes. He is also likely to announce new projects/schemes for Jammu and Kashmir.
This will be the Prime Minister’s first visit to the Kashmir valley after the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019 and second visit to the UT in about a fortnight. He had visited the Jammu region on February 20 to inaugurate and lay foundation stone of several development projects worth Rs 32,000 crore and addressed a massive public rally at MA Stadium.
Officials said the Prime Minister is likely to announce some new projects/schemes for Jammu and Kashmir during historic rally at Bakshi Stadium where large number of people are expected to gather to listen to him from all parts of the Valley including the Paharis who were recently granted Scheduled Tribe (ST) status, Gujjars & Bakerwals who have been given 10 percent reservation in the UT Assembly and Other Backward Classes (OBCs) who for the first time got reservation in Government jobs and educational institutions besides political reservations in Panchayats and Municipalities.
“There is high enthusiasm among various sections of people about the Prime Minister’s rally,” the sources said. Senior leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are also campaigning in the Valley to oversee rally arrangements.
As per the officials, the Prime Minister will interact with beneficiaries of the Government schemes via video conferencing from the rally venue in both Jammu and Kashmir divisions. A large number of people have been benefitting from welfare schemes of both Central and Union Territory Governments, they said.
Modi is also likely to handover appointment letters to the youth.
Security forces have been put on alert ahead of the visit of Narendra Modi, in Srinagar.
The deployment of security personnel has been increased around the renovated Bakshi Stadium with barricades set up for checking the vehicles passing through the venue of PM Modi’s rally, the officials said.
Police and paramilitary forces are conducting random checking of vehicles at dozens of places in the city and elsewhere, the officials said.
Special check points have been set up at various places in the city, including the entry and exit points as a precautionary measure.
The security forces have increased patrolling around the venue of the rally as part of area domination exercise to ensure a smooth and incident-free visit of the Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister’s visit is expected to boost the BJP prospects of winning Anantnag-Poonch-Rajouri seat to mark presence in Kashmir for the first time as the party has never won Lok Sabha or Assembly seat in the Valley so far.
The BJP has been banking on the support of Pahari votes on Anantnag-Rajouri-Poonch seat to wrest it from the National Conference whose candidate Hasnain Masoodi won it in 2019 polls. People’s Democratic Party (PDP) chief Mehbooba Mufti bagged the seat in 2014.
In the names of candidates announced by the BJP for 195 Parliamentary constituencies in the first list released yesterday, Anantnag-Rajouri-Poonch seat didn’t figure. However, there were reports that the party is considering the names of BJP UT chief Ravinder Raina, a bureaucrat and prominent Pahari and Gujjar leaders for the constituency.
The BJP retained for third time its candidate Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh and Jugal Kishore Sharma from Udhampur and Jammu seats.–(Daily Excelsior)
