Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh on Tuesday said that the Centre’s top agenda currently is including Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) in India.
“We had been instructed to give due importance to Jammu-Kashmir and Ladakh, along the lines of treatment meted out to the North-East (in NDA rule). Nobody can imagine what is going to happen in the future, and top priority on the list of agendas is to make POK part of the Republic of India and bring it back to the form in which Maharaja Hari Singh gave it to us,” Singh said during the ‘Jammu-Kashmir Jan Samvad’ being held through video conferencing.
Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan also spoke at the rally being held today.
On the occasion of the death anniversary of Bharatiya Jana Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mukherjee, Singh said that the renaming of Chenani-Nashri tunnel after him was fitting tribute for his contribution to the country.
“In the last 70 years, the priority of other governments was such that no project in the country was named after Syama Prasad Mukharjee, but the first national-level road project named after Mukherjee is in this region. It is the 9 kilometres long, Chenani-Nashri tunnel,” Singh said.
Mukherjee died in police custody on June 23, 1953, after he was arrested by the Jammu and Kashmir police for entering the erstwhile state without a permit.
Singh also spoke about the sacrifices made by the late Jana Sangh founder and added that the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir was “fitting compensation for years of sacrifices made by BJP workers and the struggle of 68 years for the cause” and added that with the move “assimilation has begun and appeasement is on the decline in Jammu and Kashmir.”