Katra: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Friday pushed for the restoration of statehood to J&K once again as he addressed a key event in Katra which was also attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Prime Minister Modi was in Katra today to flag off a Vande Bharat train service between Katra and Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir, the maiden train connection between the Kashmir valley and the Jammu region.
Speaking at the event in the presence of PM Modi, Abdullah said, “There are four persons on this stage who were present at the inauguration of the Katra railway station (in 2014). You had just won the election, becoming the Prime Minister for the first time. MoS in PMO Jeetendra Singh was present then and our LG Manoj Sinha sahib was discharging duties as MoS Railways and I was here as chief minister.
“If you see, by the blessings of Mata (Vaishno Devi) Sinha has got a promotion and I had a demotion. I was chief minister of a state and now I am a CM of the UT. However, I believe that it will not take long to rectify it …. Jammu and Kashmir will again get the statehood under your watch only,” Abdullah said.
On August 2019, the Centre bifurcated the erstwhile state into two Union territories — Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh — along with the abrogation of Article 370.
Abdullah said many people, including the British had dreamt of connecting Kashmir by train but they could not succeed. “What the British could not achieve has happened at your (Modi’s) hands and Kashmir has been connected to the rest of the country,” he added.
Abdullah also remembered former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and said the Kashmir would have not got its maiden train if the latter had not declared the train to Kashmir a project of national importance and made provisions in the budget.
