It was a heady brew of religion and politics. Prime Minister Imran Khan went all the way to Gilgit-Baltistan where his Pakistan Tahreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has recently clinched victory in a tumultuous election. On the other hand, the PPP and the PML-N have recently held big protest rallies and did not accept the election results. The PM went there to attend the oath-taking ceremony of the cabinet there and deliver a speech. However, his speech turned out to be a tirade against his political rivals and he was reduced to delivering a sermon invoking different religious edicts to smite Nawaz Sharif, Asif Zardari, and their children in one go. He also said that former finance minister Ishaq Dar was very stressed during an interview at BBC and that stress is the source of many diseases. The GB is a key region for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and the tensions in the current elections has been taken for a very careless act by international observers. The second cause of concern should be sectarian sensitivities as it seems that distribution of power is based on sects there. Dwindling tourism due to coronavirus is yet another major threat as tourism is a source of earning for the people. The prime minister addressed these problems only vaguely during his speech. As for CPEC, he said special economic zones will be set up with generation of electricity adding that the region will soon generate more electricity than its needs. But encouraging is the fact that he said that the government is committed to giving provincial status to the GB. He said it will counter a sense of deprivation among the people of the area, at which there was shouting of slogans in the hall. However, there is a need to look into the apprehensions the Azad Jammu and Kashmir government is having about this idea. The resistance is also found in different groups in the GB who think that it will curb their liberties and change the status of the region. The area has already had enough of state apathy, and now no change should be forced upon it. The prime minister was right in identifying that this area has lagged behind than other parts of the country and should be uplifted. *