Oppn parties attack Amit Shah for remarks against Nehru; BJP hits back

PTI, Dec 7, 2023, 8:47 AM IST

New Delhi: Opposition parties on Wednesday attacked Home Minister Amit Shah for his remarks against India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, with Congress leaders saying nobody has the right to insult those who fought against British Rule and offered everything to support the freedom struggle.

BJP leaders, however, asserted that whatever Shah said in the Lok Sabha about Nehru is correct, and history has to be told.

Shah on Wednesday blamed Nehru’s “two major blunders” — declaring a ceasefire without winning entire Kashmir and taking the issue to the United Nations — for the sufferings of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.

The home minister trained his guns at Nehru while replying to a debate in the Lok Sabha on the Jammu and Kashmir Reservation (Amendment) Bill and the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation (Amendment) Bill.

Reacting to Shah’s remarks, Congress general secretary and Rajya Sabha MP Jairam Ramesh wrote on X, “Today in the Lok Sabha, the home minister made deliberately provocative and blatantly false statements on Nehru’s role in J&K in 1947 and 1948”.

“Dr Farooq Abdullah immediately called out the distorian masquerading as a pseudo-historian,” he said. Abdullah is National Conference’s president and represents Srinagar in the Lower House of Parliament.

“These are tactics to derail the Congress and INDIA’s narratives, and I for one will not fall into the Shah trap. His office should get him to read Chandrasekhar Dasgupta’s masterly book, ‘War and Diplomacy in Kashmir’ in which many such myths have been exposed,” Ramesh added.
Congress MP Manish Tewari described Shah’s remarks against Nehru as “absolutely erroneous” and told PTI that “in hindsight with a six by six vision, you can find fault with any decision of the government”.

“Ceasefire happened because the then government was advised by the commander-in-chief of the Indian Army General Roy Bucher,” he said, asserting that the ceasefire was “inevitable” at that point in time.