Srinagar
Former Union minister and Senior Congress leader professor Saif Din Soz said that Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was willing to give Kashmir to Pakistan but Jawaharlal Nehru wanted the region to remain with India, media reports said.
“Sardar Patel was a pragmatist and had offered Kashmir to Liaquat Ali Khan (then Pak PM). He told him ‘don’t talk of Hyderabad, talk Kashmir; take Kashmir but don’t talk of Hyderabad’ as Khan was preparing for war and Patel wasn’t,” he told ANI at the sidelines of the launch of his book.
Soz had recently triggered a controversy for backing former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s stance on Kashmir.
In his book ‘Kashmir: Glimpses of History and the Story of Struggle’, Soz had stated that Musharraf’s assessment of Kashmir “seems to be correct even today.”
“Musharraf said Kashmiris don’t want to merge with Pakistan, their first choice is independence. The statement was true then and remains true now also. I say the same but I know that it is not possible,” he further noted, in an interview to ANI.
