n The fight for the legacy of India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and former Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir Hari Singh over the accession of Kashmir has split the Congress, which has often been the target of the BJP’s attack on the contentious issue.
With Hari Singh’s son and senior most Congress leader Karan Singh penning an article to the discomfort of the grand old party, Congress chief spokesman Jairam Ramesh on Thursday criticized his senior for "sidestepping" Union Law Minister Kiren Rijuju's "hit job" on Jawaharlal Nehru's role in Jammu and Kashmir's accession to India.
Ramesh said Singh had defended his father and erstwhile ruler Hari Singh. "There is not a single scholarly and serious work on J&K that portrays Maharaja Hari Singh in good light. Even this authoritative work by VP Menon doesn't make Hari Singh a wronged man. It is hence natural that his son Dr. Karan Singh defends him in the article," Ramesh said, sharing the screenshot of the cover of a book by Menon, on social media.
"What I find surprising though is that Dr. Karan Singh has sidestepped Rijuju's hit job on Nehru. This is the same Nehru without whose support Dr. Karan Singh wouldn't have achieved much, as he acknowledges in his 2006 book with 216 letters exchanged between them during 1948-64," he said.
This is the same Nehru to whom Karan Singh dedicated his book on Aurobindo in May 1962, and for which the country's first PM wrote a wonderful foreword, he added.
Jammu and Kahmir's accession came into focus with Rijiju writing an article for a portal citing "five Nehruvian blunders", including floating the idea of a plebiscite and terming Jammu and Kashmir's accession provisional.
The minister had said it was important to realise past mistakes to build a new future and added he has not tweaked history but stated facts to set the record straight.
The Congress had demanded an apology from Rijiju over his criticism of Nehru's handling of the Kashmir issue and asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to rein in ministers from making "irresponsible statements".