Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh today said that the nation should be grateful to Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi because he had completed Jawaharlal Nehru's unfinished task by abrogating Article 370.

Nehru and the then ruling dispensation had accepted Article 370 of the Constitution as "temporary" but allowed it to continue because over the years, the ruling parties in the erstwhile state of J&K developed a vested interest in its continuance.

In an exclusive interview at the "Bharat Leadership Summit" in New Delhi, Dr Jitendra Singh recalled that Article 370 was included in the Indian Constitution despite reservations from Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee in the Constituent Assembly.

Dr Jitendra Singh said, votaries of Article 370 in Jammu & Kashmir were the biggest abusers of this Constitutional provision in order to sustain themselves in power and serve their political interests.

“Jammu & Kashmir suffered a long nightmare of blunder, blackmail and deceit propagated by vested interests,” he said.

Later the continuance of terrorism and militancy also became a vested interest for the ruling dispensation in the erstwhile state of J&K because it enabled them to get elected and form government with mere 10% or less voting and thus continue their dynasty rule, generation after generation, he said.

Dr Jitendra Singh alleged that successive governments over the years have backed out of the historic 1994 unanimous Parliament resolution on Jammu and Kashmir.

Government’s consistent and principled position, as also enunciated in the Parliament resolution adopted unanimously by both Houses on 22 February 1994, is that the entire Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh have been, are and shall be an integral part of India, he said. In addition, Pakistan will be made to withdraw from PoJK, says the resolution.

Dr Jitendra Singh said, if only the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had allowed his Home Minister to handle Jammu & Kashmir in the same manner as Sardar Patel was handling the other princely States of India, the history of Indian subcontinent would have been different and PoJK would have been a part of India.

“No referendum or plebiscite was mandated in any other erstwhile princely states during the unification of India, but why an exception was made when Nehru spoke of referendum in the case of J&K and created a controversy for the years to come,” he asked.

One of the blunders, said the Minister, was to declare unilateral ceasefire precisely by PM Nehru when the Indian Army was about to retrieve the areas of J&K captured by Pakistan which are now part of PoJK.

The Minister said that the unilateral ceasefire declaration by the then Prime Minister Nehru also led to loss of parts of Jammu & Kashmir. He said that such decisions are still costing India for its land and resources.

Dr Jitendra Singh, who is an elected MP from Udhampur constituency of J&K Union Territory, said redemption came in the form of Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he abrogated Article 370 in August 2019 and liberated the people of J&K and integrated the UTs of Jammu-Kashmir and Ladakh into the national mainstream.

Dr Jitendra Singh said, in the last more than nine years PM Modi has created the milieu for entrepreneurship and a thriving industry.

“We had everything, but we were possibly waiting for an enabling milieu to happen. And that enabling milieu happened after Prime Minister Modi came in,” he said.

Dr Jitendra Singh said, India has emerged as a leading Space power with the successes of Chandrayaan-3 and Aditya L1 missions.

“PM Modi enabled India’s Space scientists to vindicate the dream of their founding father Vikram Sarabhai by unlocking India’s Space sector and providing an enabling milieu in which India’s huge potential and talent could find an outlet and prove itself to the rest of the world,” he said.

“After the opening up of the Space sector by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi in June 2020, the number of Space Startups sky-rocketed from merely 4 to 150 Startups,” he added.

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