New Delhi: Responding to Rahul Gandhi’s attack on Amit Shah over the latter’s remarks against Jawaharlal Nehru, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday invoked Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s contribution in integrating the erstwhile princely states with the Union of India after Independence. BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad claimed there have been no issues in the princely states handled by the first home minister of India but there have been many challenges in the one state (Jammu and Kashmir) handled by Nehru, the first prime minister of the country.

“Why was Article 370 drafted? It was temporary. People from Congress were against it,” Prasad claimed.

He said Shah’s remark on Nehru was the reality of history.

“There were 550 princely states, they were handled by Sardar Patel, there is no problem there. One was handled by Nehru… it is problematic till date. Most problems ended in 2019,” he added.

Prasad claimed Rahul Gandhi ran away from the truth.

“Amit Shah has full knowledge of history. A lot is said about your knowledge across the country. I don’t want to say anything about that,” he added.

BJP leader Giriraj Singh said Rahul Gandhi had no knowledge of history.

“I think he has read Mountbatten and Romila Thapar’s history,” he quipped.

On Tuesday, Gandhi said Shah was unware of history and had a “habit of rewriting it”.

“Pandit Nehru gave his life for India, he was in jail for years. Amit Shah is unaware of history. I cannot expect him to know history, has a habit of rewriting it,” Gandhi said.

He claimed the BJP uses Nehru’s name to district the masses from real issues.

“They do not want to discuss this issue, they run away from this. We will take this issue forward and make sure that the poor get what they deserve…Even our CM in Chhattisgarh was from the OBC, they too announced an OBC CM, but the question is what percentage of them are in the structure? PM Modi is from the OBC category but the government is run by 90 people and only 3 out of them are from OBC community and their offices are in a corner. My question is about the participation of OBCs, Dalits and tribals in the institutional system. They talk about Jawaharlal Nehru and others to distract us from this issue,” he said.

Speaking in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, the Home Minister said Nehru had “accepted his mistake” regarding the ceasefire during the war with Pakistan in 1948 and of taking the Kashmir issue to the United Nations.

With inputs from ANI, PTI