Katra, June 7 -- Joking about his "demotion" from chief minister of a state to that of a Union Territory, Jammu & Kashmir's Omar Abdullah made a pitch again for the restoration of the region's statehood.

He was sharing the dias with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the UT's Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha in Katra on Friday, soon after the PM launched the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Line Project , and remembered the inauguration of the Katra railway by Modi in 2014.

"I was the chief minister and you had become PM for the first time. At that time, there were four people, who shared the dais, PM Modi, BJP MP Jugal Kishore, Manoj Sinha and me," he said, adding that Sinha was the Union Minister of State for railways at the time.

"He (...