New Delhi: Amidst the repeated claims that Kashmir problem would not have been existed had Sardar Patel been made the first prime minister of India, senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal Monday reminded the Rajya Sabha that the former home minister was in reality ready to give entire Kashmir to Pakistan.
"Sardar Patel sahab was Home Minister then. He brought article 370. At that time it was discussed that Sardar Patel was ready to give Kashmir to Pakistan," Sibal said in the Rajya Sabha while speaking on the government's proposed move to repeal Article 370.
While continuing his speech, Sibal also said that there were many provisions in the bill scrapping Art. 370 which are against the law.
He asked the government why various stakeholders were not consulted before bringing the bill to revoke Article 370 and bifurcate Jammu and Kashmir into two Union territories (UTs).
Kapil Sibal is not the lone voice that claimed the agreement of Sardar Patel as home minister to give Kashmir to Pakistan in return of Hyderabad state.
In Februrary 2018, a number of historians and scholars had made this claim saying "Sardar Patel was ready to offer Kashmir to Pakistan in return for Junagadh and Hyderabad".
"On the contrary, entire Kashmir might have been theirs. At one point, Sardar Patel was ready to offer Kashmir to Pakistan in return for Junagadh and Hyderabad's accession to India", Srinath Raghavan, a former army officer and an expert on the historical aspects of India’s foreign and security policies, wrote on Twitter on February 07, 2018.
Raghavan's tweet was in response to PM Modi's claim in Lok Sabha that if Sardar Patel had been the first prime minister of the country, there would be no issue on Kashmir as it would have got fully integrated with India.
In a series of tweets, Raghavan added that it is "absurd to assume that he would have been tougher than Nehru on Kashmir."
Similar claims were made in an article published in Frontline in the June, 2000.
Noted journalist Kuldip Nayar had also written in his book that Sardar Patel had "happliy offered Kashmir to Pakistan for Hyderabad and Junagadh.
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