Pak refugees to J-K could not contest even local polls due to Article 370: J P Nadda

J P Nadda conveyed the party leadership displeasure with Thakur’s toilet remarks made while addressing a gathering at Sehore in Madhya Pradesh on Sunday. (File)

BJP working national president J P Nadda on Thursday said that Manmohan Singh and I K Gujral who migrated from West Pakistan to parts of India other than Jammu and Kashmir became Prime Ministers, while refugees who moved to the erstwhile northern state could not get the chance to contest even local elections because of Article 370.

Speaking during the foundation laying ceremony of BJP’s regional office in Kanpur, Nadda said, “Do you know that two of the refugees — Manmohan Singh and IK Gujral — who had migrated from West Pakistan to India got the chance to become Prime Minister, while one of our leaders, Lal Krishna Advani, became deputy Prime Minister?”

He claimed what Prime Minister Narendra Modi has achieved in 100 days, Congress could not do in 70 years. He asked workers to connect with the beneficiaries of Central schemes such as Ujwala and Ayushman.

Underlining that a party can’t be run from a leader’s house, the Rajya Sabha MP claimed that the BJP will soon have 17 more offices in the state, taking the total to 68. Across the country, the party has 200 offices and another 200 are being constructed, he said. Land for another 200 offices is also being finalised.