‘LG promoted, I got demoted': CM Omar makes another pitch for statehood
Joking about his 'demotion' from chief minister of a state to that of a Union Territory, Jammu & Kashmir's Omar Abdullah made a pitch again for the restoration of the region's statehood.
He was sharing the dias with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the UT's Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha in Katra on Friday, soon after the PM launched the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Line Project , and remembered the inauguration of the Katra railway by Modi in 2014.
'I was the chief minister and you had become PM for the first time. At that time, there were four people, who shared the dais, PM Modi, BJP MP Jugal Kishore, Manoj Sinha and me,' he said, adding that Sinha was the Union Minister of State for railways at the time.
'He (Sinha) got promoted as Lieutenant Governor of J&K, but mine is a sort of demotion. Earlier, I was CM of a state, but, now I am CM of a UT. However, I believe that it will not take long to rectify it. Jammu and Kashmir will again get the statehood under your (PM Modi's) watch only,' he said.
Both Prime Minister Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah have previously said that Jammu & Kashmir's statehood will be restored, though no timeline has been provided for this. The UT was created by breaking up the erstwhile state into two -- the UT of J&K and the UT of Ladakh in 2019. This was done even as Article 370, which gate the erstwhile state special status, was abrogated.
LG Sinha, in his address, said that the PM was 'uniting the hearts of people by ensuring rail connectivity' across the country. 'Train from Kashmir to Kanyakumari is not a slogan anymore. PM has turned it into a reality just moments ago by flagging off Vande Bharat train from Katra to Srinagar,' he said.
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