Anyone dividing country is criminal: Pragya Thakur on Nehru

New Delhi, Aug 20: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP from Bhopal Pragya Singh Thakur on Monday claimed that former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru was a "criminal" for imposing Article 370 which gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir.

"Whoever will hurt our motherland, anyone who tries to break our India, surely is a criminal," she was quoted as saying by India Today.

Earlier, Chouhan, a former Madhya Pradesh chief minister accused the Congress of being responsible for many problems in the country and alleged that Nehru had committed a "sin" by introducing Article 370, which accorded special status to Jammu and Kashmir.

"The introduction of Article 370 was a crime. It led to terrorism while Sheikh Abdullah's family prospered. The people of Kashmir remained poor. Nehru committed the crime of announcing ceasefire in war with Pakistan, at the time when Indian forces were driving out the Pakistani infiltrators from Jammu and Kashmir. Due to this, one-third of the portion (PoK) remained with Pakistan," he was quoted by news agency ANI last week.

Digvijaya Singh retorted: "Nehru ke pairon ki dhool bhi nahi hai Shivraj, sharm aani chahiye unko (Shivraj is not even worth the dust of Nehru's feet, he should be ashamed)."

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath also condemned Chouhan's statement against Nehru as "extremely objectionable and condemnable".

"Nehru ke pairon ki dhool bhi nahi hai Shivraj, sharm aani chahiye unko (Shivraj is not even the dust of Nehru's feet, he should be ashamed)," Singh told reporters in Sehore, around 35 kms from Madhya Pradesh capital Bhopal.

Chouhan, a BJP vice president, had also said that "now the historic blunder committed by Nehru has been corrected by Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the revocation of Article 370."

On August 5, Home Minister Amit Shah announced that the central government has decided abrogation of special status given to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 and creation of two new Union territories Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh after bifurcating the state.