Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday (December 11) countered RJD MP Manoj Jha over his remarks on Kashmir in Rajya Sabha during the debate on J-K Reservation (Amendment) Bill, 2023 and J-K Reorganisation (Amendment) Bill, 2023. Shah said that Kashmir belongs to all Indians and India is of the Kashmiris. This comes after Jha said, “There is no one in this House today who is for Kashmir”.
Shah objected to the remark and said, “He can speak for himself, but why is he speaking for us? We are always for Kashmir. The region is for everyone from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, and from Dwarka to the North-East. Likewise, the country is of every Kashmiri.”
The video of the same was shared on social media and went viral.
RJD MP reacts
Reacting to Shah’s remark, Jha said that the Union Minister “took it somewhere else”.
“I just said that there is no elected MP from Kashmir but he (Amit Shah) took it to somewhere else...The kind of speech Home Minister Amit Shah gave today lacked dignity... So our LoP Mallikarjun Kharge decided that we should walk out of the Parliament,” he said.
Shah moved the two Bills in Rajya Sabha for passage, after they were passed by Lok Sabha last week.
Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court upheld the Centre’s decision on August 5, 2019, to scrap Article 370 from Constitution, giving a special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. Shah lauded the Supreme Court’s verdict and termed it “historic”.
