Integration delayed due to Nehru: Min

New Delhi, October 25

Asserting that the accession of Jammu and Kashmir with India was final and complete, Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Sunday said former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was responsible for the delayed integration of the erstwhile state.

“If there was a delay of over two months, it was not on account of Maharaja Hari Singh but on account of the then Prime Minister Nehru who was not forthcoming in his approach and was instead being led by cues and inputs from Sheikh Abdullah (former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir),” said Singh, the Minister of State for Personnel.

He said if the first Home Minister of the country Sardar Patel had been given a free hand to handle the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir just as he was handling the other princely states of undivided India, not only the history of the Indian subcontinent would have been different, but also the accession of the state would have happened much earlier.

“The part of Jammu and Kashmir presently under illegal occupation of Pakistan, as PoJK, would have also been a part of Independent India,” the minister said. He further said history had been unfair to Maharaja Hari Singh and hoped that in the changed milieu of today, the record would be put straight and all misgivings cleared for the benefit of future generations. — PTI