`Hope Pakistan Occupied Kashmir will become part of India by 2024`: Union Minister Kapil Patil

Thane: Hailing the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Minister of State for Panchayati Raj Kapil Patil expressed hope that Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK) is integrated with India by 2024.

"Hope PoK (Pakistan Occupied Kashmir) is integrated in India by 2024 as these things can be done only by PM Modi. For this we`ll have to come out of (the mindset for) potato, onions, pulses," Patil said while addressing an event in Kalyan city in Maharashtra`s Thane district on Saturday.

Patil, who is a BJP Lok Sabha MP from Bhiwandi, recalled the Prime Minister`s statement in Rajya Sabha on the Kashmir issue in 2015. 

"Prime Minister Narendra Modi had given such assurance in the Rajya Sabha wherein he had said that former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao had called a joint session of Parliament and in it, he (Rao) had said that PoK is the biggest problem of the country. The Kashmir will have to be taken by India at some point or the other, only then can a permanent solution be found. The Prime Minister had then pointed to the Congress and said that you could not do this, but I am doing it," the BJP MP said.