J&K elections: PM Modi to address rally in Doda on Saturday

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit J&K on Saturday for an election rally, his first campaign event in the union territory after the Assembly polls were announced.

PM Modi is scheduled to address a BJP election rally in Doda district where voting for eight Assembly seats in three districts of Chenab Valley is scheduled on September 18.

During the 2014 Assembly elections, PM Modi addressed the BJP poll rally in the Kishtwar district. Party sources said the people of Doda had since then been demanding that they want to see and hear the PM.

“The choice of Doda as the venue for tomorrow’s election rally was made by the PM himself,” party sources said.

The same sources said depending upon the availability of time, the PM could also address another election rally in the Jammu division on Saturday.

Parts of Poonch and Rajouri districts are also going to vote in the first phase of the 3-phased assembly election in J&K.

BJP sources said the visit by the Prime Minister will definitely boost the electoral prospects of party candidates in the UT.

A high alert has already been sounded in the entire Chenab Valley region with the security forces and the police maintaining their ubiquitous presence to secure the VVIP and the large number of people who turn out to hear him.

The BJP has already said that its star campaigner, the Prime Minister, will visit J&K for electioneering in every phase of the Assembly elections.

The party is contesting all 43 Assembly seats in the Jammu division. In the last J&K assembly, BJP had 25 MLAs.

PM Modi is also expected to visit the Valley on September 19 when he will address another BJP election rally in Srinagar city.

Voting in the three phases of J&K polls is being held on September 18, September 25 and October 1. The counting of votes will take place on October 8.

J&K is seeing an Assembly election after 10 years and its first after the abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A.

In 2014 the state had a PDP-BJP coalition led by Mehbooba Mufti. The coalition fell in June 2018 when the BJP pulled out of the coalition. J&K was placed under the Governor’s rule. The then state governor, Satya Pal Malik later dissolved the Assembly.

On August 5, 2019 Article 370 was abrogated and the state bifurcated into two UTs of J&K and Ladakh.