Jammu, Feb 21: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson for Jammu and Kashmir, Dr Abhijeet Jasrotia on Friday launched a scathing attack on the Congress party and its leadership for historical missteps regarding the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) and the neglect of Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK) refugees.
Addressing a press conference here, Dr Jasrotia endorsed a recent statement by J&K Congress chief Tariq Hameed Karra who reportedly admitted that former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru made a grave mistake in signing the Indus Water Treaty.
The BJP spokesperson said the treaty, signed in 1960 between India and Pakistan, granted Pakistan control over 135 million acre-feet of water from the Indus and Jhelum rivers, while India retained only 33 million acre-feet from the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej rivers. This unfair allocation has had severe consequences for India’s water security, especially in Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab, he said.
Condemning the Congress party’s failure to rectify the inequities of the treaty, Dr Jasrotia also criticised former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi for not securing compensation for PoJK refugees displaced by the construction of Pakistan’s Mangla Dam. Despite her congratulatory message to then-Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto on the dam’s completion, she failed to negotiate reparations for the affected refugees, he said.
The BJP leader further slammed the National Conference (NC) government for its handling of the Thein Dam project on the Ravi River. He said the Kathua-Kandi belt was promised both water and electricity as part of the agreement, but these assurances were never fulfilled. While Punjab has benefited significantly from the dam, the Kandi region remains dry and underdeveloped, he added.
Demanding justice for the affected people, the spokesperson called on the Punjab government to compensate the residents of the Kathua-Kandi belt with over Rs 8,000 crore for the hardships they have endured. He urged the Congress party and Rahul Gandhi to issue a public apology for what he described as “the biggest blunders in India’s history” committed by Nehru and Indira Gandhi.
Reaffirming his support for Tariq Hameed Karra’s admission regarding Nehru’s mistake, Dr Jasrotia urged the Congress leadership to take accountability and work towards correcting these long-standing injustices. He called for renewed efforts to ensure water security, fair resource distribution and justice for the people of PoJK and the Kathua-Kandi belt.
