Jaitley slams Chidambaram, says 'J-K autonomy' remark contrary to national interest

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday slammed Senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram for his 'Jammu and Kashmir autonomy' remark, saying Congress' position over the issue goes directly contrary to India's national interest.

Reacting to Chidambaram's remark, Jaitley said the Valley was facing problems due to the flawed policy of the Congress party ever since Independence.

"The position that the Congress party has taken goes directly contrary to India's national interest. It was the flawed policy of the Congress party right since 1947 which is responsible for the Kashmir problem. Historically Kashmir problem is a Congress party legacy. Instead of learning from its past mistake the Congress wants to precipitate a crisis further for this country," Jaitley told ANI.

Continuing his attack on the Congress, Jaitley said the Congress party wasted the opportunity to resolve the issue of the Valley when it was in power.

Further highlighting the initiatives taken by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government since it came to power, Jaitley said his government faced lost of difficulty in re-establishing the network to tackle the crisis.

"The Congress party is deceiving the whole country, it is deceiving itself and is encouraging separatism in the state of the J-K and hurting India's national interest and it is very serious issue," he said.

The Finance Minister also hit out at Chidambaram for terming demonetisation as the "biggest" man-made disaster, "worse than the Tsunami of 2004".

"The Congress party never had fighting black money on their agenda and therefore all the anti-black money steps that the NDA government has taken are something that disturbed them," he said.

Chidambaram, during an interactive session in Rajkot, had said that people of J-K seek greater autonomy when they ask for 'azadi'.

"The demand in Kashmir is to respect in letter and spirit the Article 370 and that means they want greater autonomy. My interactions in Jammu and Kashmir led me to the conclusion that when they ask for Azadi, overwhelming majority wants autonomy," Chidambaram had said.

The former finance minister had also said the Centre should find out the areas in the state where autonomy can be given.