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New Delhi, Jun 23 (UNI) Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha L K Advani today said the credit for bringing Jammu and Kashmir under the Indian Constitution should go to Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS) founder late Shyama Prasad Mukherjee who sacrificed his life for the sake of integrating the northern most state into the country.

Releasing a complation of Presidential Addresses of all the BJS Presidents right from Mukherjee's days in 1951 in a book form, Mr Advani, also the last BJS President before it merged into the Janata Party in 1977, said Mr Mukherjee had put up a valent fight with his famous slogan that the country would never accept a system which allowed 'two Prime Ministers, two Constitution and two National Flags' (Ek desh mein Do Pradhan, Do Vidhan and Do Nishan Nahi Chalegi Nahi Chalengi).

He said Mukherjee, the country's first Industries Minister in the Jawaharlal Nehru's Cabinet, had entered Jammu and Kashmir without permit paying with his own life on this very day. His death forced the country to change the Constitution bringing Jammu and Kashmir into the ambit of Indian Constitution, Parliament, Supreme Court and the Election Commission of India.

Till 1953, these institutions did not have any role, as the state had its own Constitution and the powers of Parliament, Supreme Court and EC were all exercised at the state level itself, he added.

Mr Advani said but for the stern role of country's first Home Minister Sardar Patel in assimilating 500 odd warring royal principalities into the Indian Union, the country would have splintered into pieces. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru for best known reasons handled Jammu and Kashmir and the result was for everyone to see, he underlined.

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