Congress lacked courage to act on Article 370: Hardeep Puri in Rajya Sabha

New Delhi, Dec 16 (PTI) Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Monday tore into the previous Congress-led governments on Article 370, saying the party abdicated its responsibility to the Constitution with regard to Kashmir as the “temporary” provision was made “de-facto permanent” because it “lacked the courage to act”.

Speaking on the ‘Glorious Journey of 75 Years of the Constitution of India’ in Rajya Sabha, Puri, the Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, slammed the Congress in his speech, which also included references to Kashmiri Pandits and the anti-Sikh riots.

Referring to Article 370, Puri said this was the only provision in the Constitution whose drafting Babasaheb Ambedkar did not oversee. When the Constituent Assembly passed Article 370, then numbered 306A, Ambedkar stayed silent.

Even Sardar Patel was shocked at the leeway given to Sheikh Abdullah and his colleagues, he added.

He said it took the “indomitable courage and resolve” of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to abrogate this Article of the Constitution which, though “intended to be temporary”, was made de facto permanent by appeasement politics”, adding that a historic wrong was corrected with the abrogation of Article 370.

He claimed that despite vehement opposition, a special provision was included in the Constitution primarily because Sheikh Abdullah’s demand for autonomy was supported by his “dear friend” Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.

Puri observed that in a letter to Sheikh Abdullah, Ambedkar had warned him of the long-term consequences and he wrote “you are offering wrong advice to Pandit Nehru”.

“By giving special status to Kashmir, you are isolating Kashmir from the mainstream of India. As a result, there will be no industrial growth or employment opportunities in Jammu and Kashmir. I will not be a party to your efforts,” Puri said, quoting Ambedkar’s letter to Sheikh Abdullah.

He said the “Congress abdicated its responsibility to the Constitution with regards to Kashmir”, asserting, “what should have been a transitional provision, ended up assuming a permanent character for nearly 70 years because the Congress lacked the courage to act”.

Puri termed Article 370 as “an anomaly, an aberration, a fracture in the Constitutional body politic of India. It militated against the very idea of India”, he said.

Referring to Jammu and Kashmir, he further said a land that holds special significance in Bharat’s history going all the way back to Rishi Kashyap, became almost alien to India after its Independence, while its residents, some of whom trace history back to the Vedic Ages, did not enjoy the same fundamental rights that the rest of the countrymen enjoyed. They had no rights, no education and no jobs, the minister said.

“The industry of brokers who claimed to be representatives of J&K enabled a culture of stone pelting and corruption,” Puri said, adding that government schemes remained un-implemented in the erstwhile state.

Puri said Kashmiri Pandits were subjected to genocide-like conditions and forced to flee while those who stayed were dragged out of their homes and ruthlessly murdered.

“There has been a lot of talk about the Constitution being a Suraksha Kawach. Were these Kashmiri Pandits not a minority?

“Where was this constitutional shield then? Where was the ‘nyaay’ when Kashmiri Pandits were hounded out of their homeland of nearly 5,000 years?” he questioned.

Asserting that today, the Congress party portrays itself as a saviour of minorities, Puri said, “Do they expect us to forget that they ran camps for forced sterilisation of Muslim men in old Delhi during 1976?”

He alleged that the Congress engineered communal riots in which several Muslim brothers and sisters lost their lives, and questioned whether these poor people had no constitutional rights.

Puri said the Congress overturned the Supreme Court decision on the Shah Bano case because they felt it might appeal to the hardline elements of the Muslim community.

To the Congress, minority welfare has just been a slogan of appeasement, Puri said, and observed that on the other hand for the Modi government, it is about inclusive development of every citizen.

He said the minorities have immensely benefited from various schemes of the central government.

“To those who suggested that the Constitution provides a ‘suraksha kawach’ to the citizens, I would ask them, what the government did when 3,000 members of my community, innocent Sikhs were killed in cold blood on the streets of Delhi,” Puri said.