WATCH: Amit Shah's full speech on Jammu and Kashmir in Rajya Sabha - See Home Minister make historic announcement

Home Minister Amit Shah made the big announcement on Monday morning as he proposed the removal of Article 370 which gives special status to Jammu and Kashmir. The announcement caused a ruckus in the House. Shah's address came hours after Section 144 CrPc was imposed in Srinagar late Sunday night. After the latest announcement, Jammu & Kashmir is no longer a state and will be recognised as a Union Territory with a legislature. Meanwhile, Ladakh will be a Union Territory without legislature.

Before his speech, the Home Minister had met Prime Minister Narendra Modi at his residence this morning. PM Modi and Amit Shah met for an hour this morning before a cabinet meeting. A short meet of the Cabinet Committee on Security, which includes PM Modi, the Home Minister, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, took place before the full cabinet met. Ahead of the announcement, the state was sent to an unprecedented lockdown that included the midnight house arrest of politicians like former chief ministers Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah. 

Watch Amit Shah's full speech on Jammu and Kashmir from Rajya Sabha here -

देखिए #JammuAndKashmir मुद्दे पर गृहमंत्री #AmitShah का #RajyaSabha में बायान #LIVE #KashmirParBadaFaisla https://t.co/xsAOWUAzFs

— Zee Business (@ZeeBusiness) August 5, 2019

Article 370 was included in the Constitution on October 17, 1949 and exempted J&K from the Indian Constitution (except Article 1 and Article 370 itself). It permitted the state to draft its own Constitution and restricted Parliament’s legislative powers in respect of Jammu and Kashmir. 

HM Amit Shah: Jammu and Kashmir to be a union territory with legislature and Ladakh to be union territory without legislature pic.twitter.com/nsEL5Lr15h

— ANI (@ANI) August 5, 2019

Meanwhile, Article 35A was introduced through a Presidential Order in 1954. It empowered the J&K legislature to define the state’s permanent residents and their special rights and privileges.