Modi wrong on Sardar Patel’s views on Kashmir: Soz

Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Feb 9: Prof Saifuddin Soz, former Union Minister and senior Congress leader, today rejected Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s views that if Sardar Patel’s line of thinking were allowed, there would have no issue on Kashmir.
“Prime Minister Modi’s assertion in the Lok Sabha, yesterday, that if Sardar Patel’s line of thinking were allowed, there would have no issue on Kashmir as J&K would have got fully integrated with India”, Prof Saifuddin Soz, in a statement issued here.
He said that this assertion of the PM is contrary to the facts of history. “My forthcoming book ‘Kashmir; The Complete Story’ carries full details on how Sardar Patel consistently offered Kashmir to Pakistan, but Liaquat Ali Khan remained stubbornly obsessed with an imaginary idea of getting Hyderabad-Deccan which was neither connected by rail nor road with Pakistan”, he added.
Soz said that former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali and senior Muslim leader and Minister, Shaukat Hayat Khan, had lamented Liaquat Ali Khan’s attitude to this matter in their thought-provoking books.
“History is based on facts and it can hardly help politicians who present their own perceptions as facts of history”, the senior Congress leader said and proposed Prime Minister Modi to start a serious study on the history of India’s freedom struggle for his better understanding on Nehru and his relationship with Sardar Patel and Mahatma Gandhi.