PM'S VALLEY EXPRESS

In most places warmed by the seasonal appearance of electoral rhetoric, it’s not rare to see politics and development get fused into one grand narrative.

- Moazum Mohammad

But for Jammu and Kashmir, it’s a bridge crossed. The train network expansion from Srinagar to Jammu formed the backdrop to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s February 20 rally at the Maulana Azad Stadium in Jammu. His main theme was how the abrogation of Article 370 had aided Kashmir’s better integration with the mainland. A series of engineering marvels—among them, the world’s highest railway bridge that awaits its last nuts and bolts, and a series of mind-bending mountain tunnels—were offered as material symbols of that idea. This was Modi’s second visit to Jammu after August 2019, when J&K’s special status was revoked. And that event was still good enough to give him his campaign plank ahead of the general election. “Article 370 was the biggest hurdle in the development of J&K. The BJP removed that wall,” he told the crowd. The development occurring as a result was eliciting enthusiasm globally, he said, and “Gulf countries were showing keen interest”—alluding also to the G20 events hosted successfully in Srinagar. Nationally, he cited the “record two crore tourists” who visited J&K in the past one year and said a better rail link would only grow those figures.