Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti says Jammu and Kashmir should have been merged with India like Hyderabad

Hyderabad: Union minister Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti on Wednesday said the Kashmir issue should have been addressed just like Hyderabad was merged with India soon after independence. [caption id=“attachment_2232426” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti. PTI [/caption] She also praised the country’s first home minister Sardar Patel for his stellar role in merging the princely states with Indian Union at a public meeting at neighbouring Medchal. The meeting was organised as part of a yatra launched by the Telangana BJP in support of their demand that the merger of then Hyderabad state with Indian Union in 1948 be celebrated officially by the state government. “If we talk about Jammu and Kashmir and Hyderabad, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel took its (Hyderabad) responsibility and Jawaharlal Nehru of addressing the Kashmir (issue). “But both had different levels of commitment (niyat). Sardar Patel’s intention was that there will be one flag, one nation and one Constitution,” she said. The issue of Kashmir, a place which was once a seat of Vedic learning and austerities by seers, should have been resolved like Hyderabad, the BJP leader said. “Accordingly, Sardar Patel merged all the princely states. But, I don’t know what the then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru had thought. Kashmir should have been addressed similar to Hyderabad. In Kashmir, where seers used to do austerities, today sounds of blasts are happening,” the minister said. She alleged that though the present government in Telangana (led by the TRS) came to power with the slogan that the day of merger (17 September) will be celebrated officially, it is not doing so.