Amit Shah picks Kashmir, OBC panel as big issues in rally

Munde, the daughter of the late BJP leader Gopinath Munde, also invited Shah to see a recently constructed 25-ft statue of Bhagwanbaba, the saint revered by the Vanjari community and whose birthplace is Sawargaon.

Union home minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah on Tuesday once again made it clear that Kashmir would remain a central poll plank in the Maharashtra state assembly polls on October 21.

Home minister Amit Shah, BJP leader Pankaja Munde, Beed MP Pritam Munde, and party general secretary Bhupender Yadav at a Dussehra rally organised in Beed district on Tuesday. (PTI image)

Addressing a Dussehra rally organised at Sawargaon village in Beed district, Shah lauded Modi for integrating Jammu and Kashmir with India with the decision to abrogate Article 370.

Shah was received by Maharashtra state minister Pankaja Munde, her sister and Beed member of Parliament Pritam Munde, with a procession of vehicles with people waving 370 tricolours. Assembly speaker Haribhau Bagade and state legislator Ram Shinde were present at the rally.

“You blessed Modi with 300 seats [in the Lok Sabha elections] and within five months he abrogated Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir to unite the entire country. Is Kashmir an integral part of India or not ?’’ Shah asked the gathering.

Munde, the daughter of the late BJP leader Gopinath Munde, also invited Shah to see a recently constructed 25-ft statue of Bhagwanbaba, the saint revered by the Vanjari community and whose birthplace is Sawargaon.

Shah said the Modi government had always worked for the betterment of the “deprived and backward classes”. “The previous governments in last 70 years could do nothing for the Other Backward Classes. It is Modi who formed the OBC Commission to address their issues through the constitutional framework. Today, the Modi government is working for deprived and backward classes in the country,” Shah said at the rally.

Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis was not present at the rally as he had programmes to attend to in Nagpur, an official with the Chief Minister’s Office explained.

In a visit to Mumbai in September, Shah had front lined Kashmir as the main electoral issue in Maharashtra.

The Opposition panned the BJP for making Kashmir the central poll issue in Maharashtra. “Will the BJP speak about the doubling of state debt, over 16000 farmer suicides, the mass closure of shops and business, large scale unemployment and high crimes against women in the state or only discuss Kashmir?’’ Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant asked.