Congress slams Rijiju over his comments on Nehru

New Delhi: The Congress on Sunday attacked Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju over his article in which he blamed Nehru for “rejecting Maharaja Hari Singh’s accession request in July 1947”, and said he was “the latest entrant to the club of distorians”.

Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh said, “I spoke to a BJP ideologue this morning about Kiren Rijiju, the latest entrant to the club of Distorians. He sent me the following message:

The strange thing is, Nehru being vilified is one thing, Hari Singh being exalted as some sort of upright & benevolent hero takes the cake.”

Rijiju in his article wrote, “The first is to mark it as the 75th anniversary of Jammu and Kashmir’s accession to India through the instrument of accession. Historically, this is correct. However, there is another, far more contextual and accurate way to look at this date. October 27 is the 75th anniversary of an important day in a series of Jawaharlal Nehru’s greatest blunders, both before and after this date, that haunted India for the next seven decades.”

Recently, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi invoked the issue of J&K and blamed Nehru, the Congress was quick to respond. Even though PM Modi did not take the name of Nehru, the Congress said Modi should check the facts first.

The party blamed Maharaja Hari Singh, the then ruler of the J&K for not acceding to India soon after Independence, but took the decision only after invaders from Pakistan tried to take over the place.

Jairam Ramesh had cited Rajmohan Gandhi’s book and said, “The PM has once again whitewashed REAL history. He overlooks the following facts only to castigate Nehru on J&K. All this has been documented well in Rajmohan Gandhi’s biography of Sardar Patel. These facts are also known to the PM’s new man in J&K.”

Jairam further said, “Maharaja Hari Singh dithered on accession. There were dreams of independence. But when Pakistan invaded, Hari Singh acceded to India Sardar Patel was okay with J&K joining Pakistan till Sept 13 1947 when the Nawab of Junagadh acceded to Pakistan.”

Jairam said, “Sheikh Abdullah championed accession to India entirely because of his friendship with and admiration for Nehru, and his respect for Gandhi.”