New Delhi: Accession of Kashmir to India would not have been possible without the support of Muslims, the Congress Party said in the Lok Sabha Thursday December 07, 2023.
“History is witness that if Muslims of the Valley under the leadership of Sheikh Abdullah, and the National Conference, had not helped at that time, then it would have been a little difficult to keep Kashmir with us,” Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said in the lower house of Parliament.
Participating in the Lok Sabha debate on the Jammu and Kashmir Reservation (Amendment) Bill, 2023, and the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation(Amendment) Bill, 2023 Thursday Chowdhury further said former Home Minister of India Sardar Patel was ready to hand over Kashmir to Pakistan for Hyderabad State. But, Kashmir remained with India because of the long-standing determination of first Prime Minister of Independent India Jawaharlal Nehru.
“Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, whose legacy the BJP has now appropriated to discredit Nehru, tried to convince Liaquat Ali Khan in the Partition Council to take Kashmir and leave Hyderabad-Deccan. In her book, ‘Kashmir in Conflict’, Victoria Schofield says that even Mountbatten’s political advisor Sir Conrad Corfield recommended a barter but anything that Corfield said carried no weight against the long-standing determination of Jawaharlal Nehru to keep Kashmir in India”, the Congress Leader in the Lok Sabha said.
Accession of Kashmir to India in October 1947 was also opposed by Maharaja Hari Singh who wanted to keep Kashmir an Independent State.
Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury also defended the Nehru government’s decision to take the Kashmir issue to the United Nations.
“Former External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha, he was not from our party. He said, ‘It was a mistake, but think also of what would have happened if India had not. What if Pakistan had gone to the UN first?’ This is not my statement. This is Sinha’s statement”, he said.
Chowdhury was responding to the BJP’s charge that was led by Union Home Minister Amit Shah against Pandit Nehru’s Kashmir policy.
“I say this with full responsibility that Kashmir suffered due to two blunders by Nehru. First, the ceasefire (with Pakistan) was announced when our forces were winning…before winning the whole of Kashmir. The second blunder was to take the Kashmir issue to the United Nations”, Amit Shah said in the Lok Sabha.
The Lok Sabha meanwhile passed the Jammu & Kashmir Reservation (Amendment) Bill, 2023 and the Jammu & Kashmir Reorganisation (Amendment) Bill, 2023 amid the opposition by the National Conference and CPI (M) MPs.
“The Bills have been passed at a time when the Reorganisation Act itself is under judicial scrutiny and the Apex Court’s judgment was awaited”, CPI(M) leader Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami said in the Lok Sabha.
“It has become a standard practice of the current dispensation to take undemocratic and unconstitutional decisions”, he said.
The Bills that the opposition members accused are aimed at changing the political demography of Jammu and Kashmir, propose to increase the number of constituencies in Jammu from the exiting 37 to 43 and total seats in the Kashmir Valley from the existing 46 to 47.
The government also announced to increase the number of nomination members from 2 to 5 and to reserve 24 seats for Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK).
“24 seats have been kept reserved for Pakistan-occupied Kashmir because PoK is ours”, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said.
The Jammu and Kashmir legislative assembly initially had 100 members including 24 for PoK, up to 1988 when the seats were increased to 111. The 24 seats are however not taken into consideration during the quorum calculation, which is why the total contestable seats were 87 including four for Ladakh.
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