Naidu holds Nehru's wrong policies responsible for Kashmir crisis

Dubbing former home minister P. Chidambaram's comments on the Kashmir situation as politically motivated, Union Information and Broadcasting Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu on Sunday urged the Congress Party to make its stand clear on the former's remark.

Asserting that problems hovering around Kashmir are a contribution of wrong policies made under India's first prime minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Naidu said the BJP, the NDA regime and Prime Minister Narendra Modi are not responsible for the present crisis.

"Mr. Chidambaram has made an irresponsible and immature statement. The statement is hurting the interest of the country and is bordering anti-nationalism, that's why I demanded that the Congress Party should make its stand clear whether they agree with Mr. Chidamabaram's statement," said Naidu.

"This man is making comments against Kashmir. I will say that Kashmir is not the creation of the BJP government or of the NDA or Narendra Modi.

Kashmir is a problem which we have inherited; it is a problem which was caused by the wrong policies of the Congress and Nehru ji as the Prime Minister. The Congress was in power for many years including the last ten years. What have they done? And now as they lost power, they are making cheap political comments," he added.

Speaking at a function in Hyderabad earlier on Friday, Chidambaram said he had a sinking feeling that India had nearly lost Kashmir due to the use of excessive force by the security forces to crush dissent there.