Senior BJP leader L K Advani has advised Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah to be cautious in his choice of words while describing the BJP’s role on Article 370.
“Omar Abdullah has every right to disagree with the BJP on matters relating to J&K. But I would advise him never to use offensive language and words like ‘cheating’ and ‘deceiving’ in that context,” Advani said in his blog.
The senior BJP leader in his earlier blog had called for the revocation of the Article 370. Abdullah, without referring to Advani, had accused the party of raising the false bogey of revocation of the Article 370 that confers special status to J&K.
“He (Omar) should know that when in the Constituent Assembly, Article 370, which confers a special status on Jammu and Kashmir, was sought to be approved, the Jana Sangh had not even been born.
However, if there was any provision in the Draft Constitution which had almost the entire Congress up in arms against it, it was this provision,” Advani said.
Quoting extensively from a book ‘My Reminiscences of Sardar Patel’ written by V Shankar, private secretary to Patel, Advani said that even Patel was against Article 370, but kept his views in the background out of his regard for the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
Advani said Nehru had finalised the draft of the provision in consultation with Sheikh Abdullah before going on a foreign visit. Though Sardar Patel was against this idea, he went ahead.
“It is an issue on which we have not only been unequivocal, forthright and consistent from the time Jana Sangh was born in 1951 till today, but it is an issue for which the party’s founder-president laid down his own life, and for which tens of thousands of party activists have courted arrest and suffered in many other ways. Since our very first all-India session at Kanpur, we have been championing complete integration of J&K state with India,” Advani said in his response to Omar’s barb.
Advani said Abdullah should be aware that the Jana Sangh was not even formed when the special status was given to Jammu and Kashmir.
“However, if there was any provision in the Draft Constitution which had almost the entire Congress Party up in arms against it, it was this provision.