Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday accused the country’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, of internationalising the Kashmir issue by taking it to the United Nations. She targeted Congress on the issue while replying to a discussion on the Budget (2022-23) for the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) in Rajya Sabha.
“It is an issue which should not have gone to a global forum. It is essentially an Indian issue. We could have handled it. We are handling it, and we are showing the difference now,” she said.
In response, Congress MP Anand Sharma said: “I would like to set the record straight. If the matter was taken to the UN Security Council, the issue was whether there would be a cessation of the military conflict or not. India did not accept the referendum.”
“The UN Observers’ Office was never given that sanctity. India conducted elections. There were elected governments in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Not only that, we fought wars and made it very clear repeatedly. This has been India’s consistent position, before 2014, that Jammu-Kashmir and Ladakh are an integral part of the sovereign state of India,” he added.
Sitharaman also said the terror activities in J&K have declined by 61% since the abrogation of Article 370. “In 2021, the kind of figures we have achieved, I want to show that there has been an overall decline in activities that disturbed the peace. There has been a 33 per cent drop in infiltration attempts (51 in 2020 versus 34 in 2021) a 90 per cent decrease in ceasefire violations (937 in 2020 versus 98 in 2021). Terror-related incidents came down from 244 in 2020 to 229 in 2021. There was an 80 per cent decline in abductions by terrorists (from 10 in 2020 to two in 2021). The casualties involving police and security personnel saw a slide of 33 per cent (from 63 in 2020 to 42 in 2021). So, activities that have troubled Jammu and Kashmir for a very long time are declining,” she said.
