Does BJP have moral right to question, asks Congress as Shah blames it for J&K issue

The Congress on Friday took strong exception to Union Home Minister Amit Shah's remarks made in the Lok Sabha wherein he blamed the Congress and India's first prime minister Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru for the Kashmir problem, and underlined that repeatedly seeking an extension of the President's Rule in Kashmir reflects the Modi government's failure to handle the matter over the last five years.

"The Home Minister referred to the Partition of India and if I heard him correctly he said, it was a great mistake. I was wondering that those people are questioning events which happened 70 years ago, who had absolutely no participation, no contribution much less a conviction in the Independence of India," Manish Tewari said whiel addressing the media.

He said that the BJP's "ideological mentors" had taken a conscious decision to not participate in the freedom struggle.

Replying to a debate in Lok Sabha on a statutory resolution moved by him to extend President's Rule in J&K, Amit Shah alleged that Article 370, saying the provision which granted special status to J&K was still there only because of Jawaharlal Nehru.

Tewari said: "The Home Minister referred to the fact that there was a ceasefire in Jammu and Kashmir, but he forgot to mention that the invasion by Pakistani irregulars, supported by regular troops occurred on the night of 22nd and 23rd October, 1947. The ceasefire happened on the 1st January, 1949. There was a protracted battle which was fought between October 1947 and January 1949 in order to reclaim the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Also blaming Nehru for the existence of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), Shah had said, "Who called for ceasefire back then? It was Nehru who did it and gave that portion (PoK) to Pakistan."

Tewari rued that there was no tradition of giving a clarification after a minister's reply, else Shah would have been rebutted inside the House itself.

"The tragedy is that unlike the Rajya Sabha, where you have a right of rebuttal, the Lok Sabha, if my knowledge serves me correctly, does not have the same tradition. Otherwise a lot of things which were said by the Home Minister were absolutely and easily rebuttable," Tewari said.

The Opposition extended him the courtesy of hearing him in silence because he had extended the same courtesy to the Oppsotion leaders.

"Of course, what the Home Minister did, he took refuge in history. The BJP has a certain narrative about Jammu and Kashmir. It is not something which is new or something that we have not heard before. But what is extremely unfortunate is this continuous embellishment and the selective use of untruths in order to try and build a new history of what happened in the past 70 years in Jammu and Kashmir," the Congress leader said.

The Congress leader said that his party was always ready to debate with BJP "at any point in time, at any place of their choosing" the history of the past 70 years of India, including what transpired in Jammu and Kashmir.

"We would be more than happy to engage them on every forum of their choice, but, this delving into history and selective blame pointing, finger pointing is not going to take the government anywhere in terms of how to tackle and resolve the problem in Jammu and Kashmir," Tewari said.

Tewari said that amid levelling all the blames on Congress, Shah "forgot to mention" that his party had agreed on an agenda of governance with the PDP and that the first article of that agenda of governance was that Article 370 would not be abolished.

"The most fundamental question, which the Home Minister chose not to answer, was that if things were normal in J&K, as the government claims, then why has it come asking for an extension of President’s Rule in the state?

"If the Election Commission of India could hold elections to Parliament in the same state just a month back, what is the hesitation behind not immediately holding elections to the state Assembly? This, the Home Minister did not and was unable to address," Tewari said.