Advani blames Nehru for Kashmir crisis

Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani on Thursday blamed India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru for the present crisis in Jammu and Kashmir.

He said "If the first Prime Minister had not taken the Kashmir issue to the UN, India would have crushed Pakistan.

"Having been defeated thrice 1948, 1965 and again in 1971 Pakistan launched a proxy war and continues to export terrorism to India. But Pakistan will have to eat humble pie in its proxy war too," he said.

Advani was addressing a public meeting in the Hazaribagh city of Jharkhand on the occasion of the Hazaribagh Vikas Mahaparv.

Chief Minister Babulal Marandi and Urban Development Minister Ananth Kumar, besides a few ministers in the Marandi cabinet, accompanied Advani.

"(Prime Minister Atal Bihari) Vajpayee's government took real initiatives to defuse tension with our neighbour Pakistan by undertaking a bus trip to Lahore," he said.

But India will not hold any more talks with Pakistan until it "eschews abetting cross-border terrorism in India. Again after Kargil war, it was the Vajpayee government that invited (President) General Pervez Musharraf for talks (in Agra in 2001)."

Advani's trip is being seen as a helping hand to External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha, whose parliamentary constituency is Hazaribagh.

Sinha has been trying to give a facelift to his Lok Sabha constituency with centrally assisted programmes.

Voicing satisfaction over the pace of development in Jharkhand, Advani said: Jharkhand has all the mineral resources and a lot can be done. With a little effort, it can join the leading states of country."

This was Advani's third trip to Jharkhand after the region became a separate state in November 2000.

Advani also laid the online foundation stone Thursday for multipurpose projects like the Town Drinking Water Supply, the Balmiki Ambedkar Awaas Yojna, the Sports Authority of India Sub Centre, an Inter-State Bus Terminal and the Nirmal Bharti Abhiyan.

He also gave away cycles to girl students, loan documents to unemployed youths and artificial limbs to physically challenged people.

Earlier, he along with his entourage went to the memorial of socialist leader Jayaprakash Narayan, located on the premises of JP Central Jail, Hazaribagh, to garland his statue.