Amit Shah to address public rally in Rajasthan tomorrow

NEW DELHI: Union Home Minister Amit Shah is scheduled to address a public rally in Rajasthan on Friday to highlight the achievements of Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led central government.

Shah will highlight the past nine years' achievements of the Modi government during a rally organized at Gandhi Ground in Rajasthan's Udaipur on Friday afternoon, said sources.

The Home Minister's public rally is part of BJP's plan for holding a month-long mass reach-out program across the country as PM Modi-led Central government completed its nine years in office in two successive terms on May 30.

The senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader is learned to share the achievements of the Modi government for the welfare of people across the country in the past nine years.

Among those, some achievements include Pradhanmantri Ujjwala Yojana fuels the LPG revolution, holistic growth with a rise in higher education institutions, the impetus to road infrastructure under Bharatmala Pariyojana, empowering women, making quality medicines affordable for all, digital revolution by transforming India's economy through digital transactions, revolutionizing medical education in India, Northeast India's journey to end insurgency, Jal Jeevan Mission and record growth in the number of airports in India

Abrogation of Article 370, along with Article 35A, the two articles in the Constitution of India that gave a special status to the former state of Jammu and Kashmir, is among other achievements of the Modi government that might be counted by Shah during his rally in Udaipur.

The special status implied that Jammu and Kashmir were different from the rest of the country, and were instrumental in fuelling separatism. The two articles were abrogated by the Modi government in 2019, fulfilling a poll promise.

Article 35A gave the state the right to determine who is a permanent resident of the state, which was added to the Constitution by presidential order, not by an amendment. Article 370 said that all the provisions of the Constitution of India do not apply to the state of Jammu and Kashmir, and had listed the provisions that applied.

While Article 35A was abrogated and it no longer exists, article 370 was amended, and it remains in the Constitution, saying *that all the provision of the Constitution also applies Jammu and Kashmir.* Along with this, the state of Jammu and Kashmir was also bifurcated into two union territories-- Jammu and Kashmir with an Assembly, and Ladakh without one.

Handling Covid-19 is among other achievements of the Modi government which Shah may focus on in his address and its world's largest free immunization program, under which over 200 crore doses of made-in-India Covid-19 vaccines have been administered. The Cowin platform developed to administer the vaccination program has been another success.