Pakistan’s interest in India’s elections
People in Pakistan are taking keen interest in Modi's reported rise and want to see how India-Pakistan relations develop if he becomes PM
New Delhi: The election campaign of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi is being keenly watched by people in Pakistan and several journalists from across the border are reaching Delhi to cover the outcome of the Lok Sabha polls.
Even though the Indian High Commission in Pakistan is helping the journalists to get visas to travel to India, the visitors are being restricted to travel only to a few places near the national capital. They will be allowed to go to the National Capital Region centred on Delhi, and Jaipur, Amritsar and Chandigarh.
Pakistan-based journalists are particularly interested in visiting Amritsar, the religious seat of Sikhs in Punjab. The contest in Amritsar is between the BJP’s Arun Jaitley, the Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, and the Congress party’s Punjab strongman Amarinder Singh, a former chief minister of Punjab.
The people of Pakistan are taking a keen interest in Narendra Modi’s reported rise and want to see how India-Pakistan relations develop if the Gujarat chief minister becomes Prime Minister, the visitors said. They also point out that since Amritsar is close to Lahore, people in Pakistan want to know about the performance of Jaitley and Amarinder Singh.
“Some of the television news channels have a four minute segment only to focus on stories coming from India. The visiting journalists are mainly coming to Delhi and then going to Amritsar," said a visiting journalist from Pakistan who didn’t want to be identified.
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