Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on Tuesday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has paid true respects to BJP ideologue Syama Prasad Mookerjee by repealing Article 370 and the move has ensured full integration of Jammu and Kashmir into India forever by removing the temporary provision that gave it a special powers.
Addressing a 'public awakening' programme on the National Register for Citizens (NRC) here, Shah also slammed the Trinamool Congress over suggestions that BJP was an "outsider" party saying that Mookerjee had struggled against the proposal to make the present state of West Bengal a part of then East Pakistan in 1947.
Shah said that Modi had fulfilled the dream of Mookerjee to abolish Article 370 and noted that the temporary provision of the Constitution and West Bengal had a strong connection due to his opposition to it.
"We feel that by abolishing Article 370, we have ensured full integration of Kashmir for all times to come and Modiji has paid true respects to the sacrifice of Syama Prasad Mookerjee," he said.
Recalling the slogan raised by Mookerjee against Jammu and Kashmir having its own Constitution, Shah said that the "great son of India" was arrested and put in jail in Srinagar in 1953 where he died under mysterious circumstances.
"After the sacrifice of Syama Prasad Mookerjee, Congress thought the matter had ended but they did not know that we are from the Jan Sangh and the BJP and once we take up an issue, we do not leave it," he said.
Shah said the people of the state had reposed their faith in the BJP by giving it 18 seats in the Lok Sabha elections earlier this year and "Modiji uprooted Article 370 and Article 35 A" in the first session of Parliament after coming to power in its second term.
He said the Prime Minister had also fulfilled the BJP's slogan of "Kashmir Hamara Hai (Kashmir is ours)" by removing the Article that gave it special powers.
Shah said the people all over the country were in support of the repeal of Article 370 but the Trinamool Congress had dragged its feet during voting on the motion for repeal of Article 370 in parliament.
"Their MPs were not there. The people of Bengal should ask Mamata about it," he said.
Shah said that West Bengal was part of India due to agitation by Mookerjee and others against it being made a part of the then East Pakistan.
"Today, if West Bengal is part of India, it is due to the agitation by Syama Prasda Mookejee," he said.
( With inputs from ANI )