Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to address a rally in Doda, Jammu and Kashmir on Saturday, marking the first visit by an Indian Prime Minister to the district in nearly five decades. The visit comes just days before the Union Territory’s upcoming assembly elections, slated to begin on September 18.
Union Minister Jitendra Singh, who inspected the venue on Friday, highlighted the significance of PM Modi’s visit
“There is a lot of excitement among the public as PM Modi has given priority to remote areas…In the past 10 years, a lot of development has taken place in Doda. No Prime Minister has visited Doda in the past 50 years. But after the visit of PM Modi, a message will go that PM Modi has worked a lot, bringing remote areas on par with developed areas,” he said.
The elections in Jammu and Kashmir, the first since 2014, will be held in three phases on September 18, September 25, and October 1, with vote counting set for October 8. This will also be the first electoral exercise in the region since the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019.
The Election Commission reports 88.06 lakh eligible voters across the Union Territory’s 90 Assembly constituencies, which include reserved seats for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
In the 2014 elections, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) emerged as the largest party, followed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference (NC), and the Congress. The subsequent PDP-BJP coalition government collapsed in 2018 when the BJP withdrew support.
(Inputs from ANI)