Stop wasting time, focus on rectifying the legal system, Congress tells Rijiju

Law Minister should focus on the system that frees those convicted of murder and gang rape, instead of authoring fraudulent pieces on Jawaharlal Nehru, Opposition party says

In a sharp attack on Kiren Rijiju, the Congress on November 15, 2022 said the Union Law Minister should focus on rectifying the legal system that “frees” murder and gang-rape convicts instead of wasting time authoring “fraudulent” pieces on Jawaharlal Nehru.

Mr. Rijiju, in an opinion piece for a news website on the Kashmir issue on Monday, claimed that Nehru had moved the UN under a wrong Article after the invasion by Pakistan that made it a “a party to the dispute instead of an aggressor”.

“Instead of wasting his time ‘authoring’ fraudulent pieces on Nehru to please MoDistorter, Law Minister Kiren Rijiju should focus on rectifying a legal system that frees those convicted of murder and gang rape. He should be more anguished by these than defaming Nehru!” Jairam Ramesh, Congress general secretary in charge of communication, tweeted in an apparent reference to the release of convicts in the Bilkis Bano gang-rape case.

In his opinion piece, Mr. Rijiju also said that Nehru let the “myth” of a UN-mandated plebiscite perpetuate and created the “divisive” Article 370 of the Constitution. “Nehru rejected Maharaja Hari Singh’s plea to accede to India not just once but thrice,” he claimed.

Former Professor of Jawaharlal Nehru University and scholar Purushottam Agrawal, who delivered the Nehru Memorial lecture on Monday, said, “The proposition sent by Maharaja Hari Singh in July was not for accession but for standstill. He had sent the proposal for a standstill not only to India but also to Pakistan.”

“In an effort to troll Nehru, you [Mr. Rijiju] have forgotten the difference between standstill and accession. This is not good. The Kashmir policy of Nehru was not his but his government’s policy.”

The fresh attack on Nehru came on his birth anniversary. Last month, Mr. Rijiju had written an article citing “five Nehruvian blunders”, including floating the idea of a plebiscite and terming Jammu and Kashmir’s accession provisional.