Terrorism confined to two-and-half J&K districts: Modi

Amreli (Gujarat), April 18 (IANS) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday claimed that the NDA government has restricted terrorist activities to only "two-and-a-half" districts in Jammu and Kashmir while not a single bomb blast was reported from anywhere else in the country in the last five years.

Addressing an election rally in farmer-stressed Amreli in Saurashtra region in Gujarat, the Prime Minister said: "No bomb blast took place anywhere in India in the last five years. We have been able to contain terrorism to just two-and-a-half districts in Jammu and Kashmir."

Referring to Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan's recent statement that Islamabad had tried to reach out to India after the Balakot air strike, Modi taunted him that he "had to make a public request to us to pick up the phone".

Modi said he had not come to Gujarat for an election rally but to thank the people of the state from whom he trained to take on the larger role of the Prime Minister. "My grooming in Gujarat helped me to deal with the long Doklam standoff with China" in 2017, the Prime Minister said.

He said the previous Congress governments had deliberately delayed the Sardar Sarovar Project, and led to the suffering of the people in the perennially drought-prone regions of Gujarat. If the project had completed 40 years ago, the things would have been much better.

Modi mocked at the Congress for dreaming to rule the country after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections while the party is fighting with its lowest number of members of Parliament in the country.