Kamal Kanta Batra, diminutive AAP candidate displayed a soldier-like toughness as she walked the Hamirpur hills in Himachal Pradesh.
The “Jai Mata Di” uttered by her son Captain Vikram Batra before he died during a counter attack by Pakistan troops at Kargil on July 7, 1999, is still reverberating in her mind and she has decided to fight for the martyrs’ families.
As AAP candidate from Hamirpur she is taking up demands of riled ex-servicemen, no less than 1.5 lakh in number, along with 2 lakh defence employees.
The 69-year-old hit out at Narendra Modi as she reached Naina Devi Temple in Bilaspur on the last day of campaigning. Kamal said, “What did he (Modi) say… Dil maange more ? That man who talks of a 56-inch-chest can’t even move within India without 36 cops of his Z-plus security. He tried to steal the slogan of my slain son to woo votes in this land of martyrs. It’s a shame.”
A disagreement had erupted when Modi invoked “Dil maange more” during his Himachal leg of campaigning including a rally held at Captain Batra’s hometown of Palampur on April 29 to be reminiscent with the people as the state has a significant number of people in the defence forces.