Partition remark: Jitendra Singh advises Farooq Abdullah to reread history

Minister of State (MoS) for parliamentary affairs Jitendra Singh on Sunday advised National Conference president Farooq Abdullah to reread history.

The former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister had claimed that it was Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel and Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad who were responsible for the partition of India and not Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan.

"He is required to reread history. We have references which indicate that Mahatma Gandhi himself had suggested to Jinnah that if he agrees to withdraw demand of Pakistan's creation, Gandhi would persuade Congress to accept Jinnah as PM of undivided India," Singh told ANI.

"But Jinnah wasn't impressed by the suggestion possibly because he felt it wasn't easy for him to gain acceptability as India PM. Nehru was also in hurry to take over as Prime Minister. Lot of opportunistic adjustments were done by patriarch of National Conference Sheikh Abdullah," he added.

While addressing an event at in Jammu yesterday, Abdullah said that it was the refusal of the three Congress leaders (Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel and Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad) to accept minority status for the Muslims which led to the partition of India.