Partition gravest blunder, says Union minister

Jammu, October 30

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Describing Partition as the “gravest blunder” in the country’s history, Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Monday said some decisions of the Congress and its rulers in the past had been still costing India dearly. He said the now revoked Article 370 of the Constitution kept J&K underdeveloped for decades and also sowed the seeds of separatism.

Addressing the gathering during the ‘Brigadier Rajinder Singh Memorial Public Lecture’ in Jammu, the Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office said if only the then PM Jawaharlal Nehru had allowed his Home Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel to handle J&K in the same manner as he was handling other princely states, the history of the Indian subcontinent would have been different and Pakistan-occupied J&K would have been a part of India.

“One of the Nehruvian blunders was to declare unilateral ceasefire precisely when the Army was about to retrieve back the areas of J&K captured by Pakistan,” Singh said.