The frontier districts of Rajouri and Poonch are emerging as ‘hot spots’ of poll battle 2014 for the Jammu-Poonch lok Sabha constituency with a sizable electorate of over 17 lakh spread over 20 Assembly segments.
With less than one week to go before the campaigning comes to an end the star campaigners are digging their heels in the area to woo the electorate in their favour.Once considered the strong bastion of National Conference- Congress it is the growing influence of Peoples Democratic Party and its cadre which is giving sleepless nights to nervous CMcurrently canvassing in the area along with battery of senior leaders of Congress and National Conference.
Earlier, Union Health Minister spent three days in the area and addressed series of poll rallies to garner support for the alliance candidate.Before the imposition of Model Code of Conduct Azad had announced Medical college for the area but people in the area are angry ever since news reports claimed that the Indian Railways had turned down the proposal to construct Jammu-Poonch rail link.
Interestingly, to win over the support of the aggrieved electorate Omar is playing religion card and targeting Modi over his alleged role in the 2002 riots. On Wednesday Omar said, “till date Modi has not said sorry for the killings of large number of innocents in Gujarat and categorically denied cladding a cap presented to him by Muslims”.
Omar is also constantly trying to expose the crucial role being played by the PDP to suit the BJP candidate in the fray.