Mumbai, Dec 8 – In a retaliatory attack on Union Home Minister Amit Shah for his reported statement that the people of Kashmir suffered for years due to former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s “two blunders”, Maharashtra Congress spokesperson Gopaldada Tiwari on Thursday reminded him that the entire nation supported Pandit Nehru’s decision to take the Kashmir issue to the United Nations.
In a press statement issued here, he said that Pandit Nehru took the Kashmir issue to the UN only after carving identity of independent India as a sovereign nation and obtaining a world-wide acknowledgement by getting various resolutions passed.
He stated that the entire nation supported Pandit Nehru’s stand by re-electing him to lead the country for subsequent terms.
Pointing out that at a time when India had just become an independent nation, was still not self reliant and faced acute shortage of technological resources, Pandit Nehru’s decision to approach the UN was the need of the hour and as per the situation prevailing at that time, he noted.
Asserting that the entire country supported Pandit Nehru’s policy and decisions from time to time and expressed their support by re-electing him and Congress repeatedly in successive elections, the party’s state spokesman targeted the Union Home Minister for conveniently forgetting the fact that people of India chose Pandit Nehru as prime minister for a whopping 17 years.
“Does he (Shah) intend to insult people by opposing the decision supported by them,” he questioned.
Continuing his onslaught, he also pointed out that Pandit Nehru, who was at forefront in India’s struggle for independence, had been jailed on seven occasions by the British and spent 11 years of his life in imprisonment for opposing the British rule.
“No BJP leader can ever be a compared with Pandit Nehru’s role in the struggle for freedom, his intellectual abilities and qualifications,” he maintained.
The Congress leader mocked Amit Shah for blaming Pandit Nehru in spite of lacking eligibility to even utter the name of a stalwart like Pandit Nehru, saying it is a convenient and cowardly tactic adopted by the Bharatiya Janata Party to divert public attention from the burning issues facing the country right now.”
Taking a dig at Amit Shah, Tiwari said, “Amit Shah should remember that the countrymen voted for BJP in 2014 and again in 2019 to take action against corruption and black money and bring good days by giving Rs 15 lakh to each Indian and not against highlighting alleged blunders of Pandit Nehru.”
Instead, he should focus on mounting debt of the country, inflation and price hike, unemployment, social harmony, peace and security, he suggested.
He demanded an answer from the Union Home Minister as to why China was allowed to encroach on thousands of kilometres land after they (BJP) were elected to rule over an already independent and developed India, he added.
