Hitting out at Opposition, Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh today dared the Congress party to publicly declare that it will restore Article 370 if ever it came back to power.
In a detailed exclusive interview on national TV channel ABP News, to mark the completion of one year of Modi government 2.0, Dr Jitendra Singh said, the Congress party and its allies, particularly the Jammu based leaders of National Conference (NC) and PDP, talk left and right denouncing the Modi government’s decision, but none of them has the courage to openly say that they are against the decision to abrogate Article 370 because, in heart of hearts, they are well aware that if they say so, they will instantly invite public displeasure and electoral losses in the next polls.
It is the same leaders, Dr Jitendra Singh recalled, who till 24 hours before 5th of August 2019, went around beating the drum and saying that nobody can dare to revoke Article 370 and if that ever happens there will be earthquake, blood shed etc, but immediately after revocation of Article 370, they felt silent and instead started raising collateral issues like for example, the conversion of State into Union Territory which according to them was a degradation and so on. They have all along evaded the basic question, whether they support abrogation of Article 370 or not, and if not, will they make it an election issue and tell the public openly that they will fight the election on the promise of restoring back Article 370 if they came to power, he asked.
Similarly, Dr Jitendra Singh said, on the issue of CAA, nobody directly raised the basic question whether they support the logic of having the Citizenship Amendment Act or not which is available in many other countries also. Instead, the opposition tried to manufacture imaginary issues like production of documents etc. in spite of repeated rejoinders by Union Home Minister Amit Shah. The result was that the misguided campaign was destined to fizzle out, he said.
Hailing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visionary steps in combating the COVID challenge, Dr Jitendra Singh predicted that in the aftermath of COVID-19, Narendra Modi has emerged as a world leader of a stature which none else from India had been able to achieve in the post-independence era. He said, compared to other countries, India’s successful fight against Corona is also a cumulative positive outcome of several out-of-box decisions taken by Prime Minister Modi in the last six years. For example, he referred to the “Swachhta” campaign which Modi initiated within a few months of taking over as Prime Minister in 2014 and is now being followed as a basic Mantra by the entire world to prevent COVID. Similarly, it was Modi who decided to set up a separate AYUSH Ministry, which is now exporting its drugs to several countries in the wake of COVID pandemic.
Dr Jitendra Singh predicted that post – COVID era will present India an opportunity to take the lead over the rest of the world and also raise its economic status, based on self-sufficiency which is, for instance, exemplified by Bamboo which is having an annual trade of around Rs 6,000 crore but in the past , most of the Bamboo items were being imported from other countries.