Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, Oct 1: Making a serious charge against opposition, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh said here today that the Congress party was responsible for having sabotaged the proposal for naming of the Jammu Airport after Late Maharaja Hari Singh.
Speaking to media persons on the sidelines of “Swachhta” programme on the eve of Gandhi Jayanti today, Dr Jitendra Singh said, time has come to call the bluff of all those who are cooking up false stories with an eye on the ongoing Urban Local Body election campaign in Jammu & Kashmir.
He asked, why the successive Governments led by Congress and its allies including National Conference, both at the Centre and the State, failed to name the Jammu Airport after Maharaja Hari Singh, particularly when ever since 1960s, the senior-most and the most influential Congress leaders from J&K had been the Civil Aviation Ministers at the Centre and the naming of airports was directly under their authority.
At that time, he said, they did not have the courage to make this suggestion, because they owed their ministerial berths to the mercy of the Nehru-Gandhi family which, they knew, was not comfortable with the name of Late Maharaja Hari Singh, he alleged.
Not only this, Dr Jitendra Singh recalled, it was the Congress-National Conference Coalition Government in the State which officially declared 13 July as “Martyrs Day” to denigrate the Dogra rule under Maharaja Hari Singh for his socalled atrocities on the people of Kashmir. At that time, we had a veteran Congress leader from J&K as Union Minister but he too decided not to object and conveniently swallowed a humble pie.
These same leaders, Dr Jitendra Singh observed, when sidelined by the Nehru-Gandhi family, are now remembering the name of Maharaja Hari Singh, but when the BJP-headed Municipal Corporation in Jammu installed the statue of Maharaja a few years ago, these same leaders deliberately avoided even attending the function.
Dr Jitendra Singh claimed that it was the Praja Parishad, then Bharatiya Jan Sangh and then Bharatiya Janata Party which has constantly struggled for more than half-a-century to keep Jammu’s nationalist ethos alive and asked, why the erstwhile Prince of Wales College at Canal Road Jammu, which was established by Late Maharaja Partap Singh, was named by Congress and its allies as Government Gandhi Memorial (GGM) Science College and not as Maharaja Partap Singh Memorial Science College. Was this because, at that time, these same crusaders of Dogra heritage were more loyal to the Gandhis than to the Maharaja, he asked.
The election campaign in Jammu & Kashmir is picking up in full swing, said Dr Jitendra Singh and stressed that BJP will use this as an opportunity to expose the duplicity of such parties and such leaders who held ministerial berths for decades together by abusing Maharaja Hari Singh and discriminating against Jammu, but now having been thrown into oblivion, they are trying to mislead the people by passing on the baggage of their sins to BJP, but we will not allow this to happen. BJP has made exemplary sacrifices for three generations to uphold the honor and self-respect of the people of this region and this is recorded in the history, he said.
Follow our WhatsApp channel
