PM Modi cannot remove Article 370, 35-A from Jammu and Kashmir, says Farooq Abdullah

National Conference (NC) president Farooq Abdullah said on Friday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi cannot remove Article 35-A and Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir. “Let him be as powerful as he (Modi) likes, he cannot remove Article 370 and article 35-A (from the state of Jammu and Kashmir),” news agency PTI quoted Abdullah as saying.

“Our right of Article 370 and Article 35-A should be protected. This is very important for us. We are soldiers of this country not enemies of this nation,” he said.

Abdullah (83) got 1,06,750 votes and defeated Aga Syed Mohsin of the PDP by 70,050 votes in the Srinagar constituency, which has a total electorate of 12,94,560.

Article 370 grants special status to Jammu and Kashmir and limits Parliament’s power to make laws concerning the state. Article 35A empowers the state assembly to define ‘permanent residents’ for bestowing special rights and privileges on them.

‘Ab ki baar, teen sau paar,’ the slogan used by the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections, turned out to be prophetic when the polling officials unboxed the Electronic Voting Machines and started the mega counting that commenced at 8 am on May 23. Early trends showed that the NDA had achieved the magic number of 272. By afternoon, the tally showed that BJP bettering its 2014 results. A day later, on May 24, the Election Commission of India’s figures show that the BJP has officially breached the 300-mark. As of now, the BJP has won 303 seats on its own.

With this, the BJP has become the first non-Congress party in the history of independent India to win more than 300 seats in the Lok Sabha Elections. Before this it was Indira Gandhi and her father and India’s first Prime Minister Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru who held this unique record. Nehru led Congress into victory in three General Elections of 1951, 1957 and 1962.