Congress lacked courage to act on Article 370: Hardeep Puri in Rajya Sabha

Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Monday tore into the previous Congress-led governments on Article 370, saying the party abdicated its responsibility to the Constitution with regard to Kashmir as the "temporary" provision was made "de-facto permanent" because it "lacked the courage to act".

Speaking on the 'Glorious Journey of 75 Years of the Constitution of India' in Rajya Sabha, Puri, the Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, slammed the Congress in his speech, which also included references to Kashmiri Pandits and the anti-Sikh riots.

Referring to Article 370, Puri said this was the only provision in the Constitution whose drafting Babasaheb Ambedkar did not oversee. When the Constituent Assembly passed Article 370, then numbered 306A, Ambedkar stayed silent.

Even Sardar Patel was shocked at the leeway given to Sheikh Abdullah and his colleagues, he added.

He said it took the "indomitable courage and resolve" of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to abrogate this Article of the Constitution which, though "intended to be temporary", was made de facto permanent by appeasement politics", adding that a historic wrong was corrected with the abrogation of Article 370.