Chandigarh: Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) will be a part of India in the next two-three years, Haryana Urban Local Bodies minister Dr Kamal Gupta said Sunday while addressing a meeting of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Vyapar Prakoshth (traders’ cell) in Rohtak.
“In 1962, 38,000 square kilometre of eastern Ladakh — called Aksai Chin today — was illegally occupied by China. We show that in maps as our own, but the area is actually controlled by China. Before 2014, we were not as strong as we are today. Now we constructed the Ram Mandir (temple) in Ayodhya, and we abolished Article 370.
“That time is not far when PoK will be part of India. Voices are already being raised in Muzaffarabad, Pallandari, Poonch and other parts of PoK. It can happen any time, maybe in two years, in three years, or five years, but PoK will be part of India,” Gupta said.
Gupta, the BJP MLA from Hisar, also castigated the opposition for demanding proof of the 2016 surgical strikes on terror launch pads in PoK and referred to leaders of the opposition as “Jaichands” — a reference to the 12th-century Rajput king who is believed to have betrayed Prithviraj Chauhan in the second battle of Tarain against Muhammad Ghori.
“People like Jaichand are still active today, who demand proof of the airstrikes carried out by our soldiers,” said the minister. In a dig at Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, Gupta also said that those who organised the Bharat Jodo Yatra are responsible for “breaking the country”.
“If anyone can make India a Vishwa Guru (universal teacher), it is the BJP,” he said in an apparent response to Gandhi’s remarks that External Affairs minister S. Jaishankar “does not understand the China threat” and that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement about no external forces having encroached on Indian territory is an “invitation to China”.
Reacting to the minister’s remarks, Vineet Punia, national secretary and in charge of internal communications for the All India Congress Committee (AICC), told ThePrint Monday, “National interest is bigger than political interest. The entire UTs of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh have been, are and shall be an integral part of India. But shallow statements are not the solution that the nation is looking forward to.”
He added, “The BJP has mastered the art of creating fake news to sensationalise non-issues over real issues the country is faced with. The people want answers on inflation, rising unemployment and Chinese occupation of 2,000 sq km Indian land.”
“They (Modi government) have no answer on how India lost access to 26 of 65 patrolling points (PP) which our Army used to patrol before May 2020. Our Army is brave but the EAM’s recent statement has underlined the meekness of our political leadership,” said Punia.
Dr Kamal Gupta (70) was elected to the Haryana Legislative Assembly first in 2014 after he defeated Savitri Jindal of the Congress from Hisar. He retained the seat in 2019 and was inducted into Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar’s cabinet on 29 December 2021.
Notably, Gupta took his oath of office in Sanskrit.
But 2014 was not his first electoral outing. Gupta had unsuccessfully contested assembly elections in 1996 and 2000 before he was made BJP’s Hisar district president in 2012.
Gupta is a qualified general surgeon by education, having attained his Master of Surgery (MS) in 1980 from Medical College Rohtak then under the Maharishi Dayanand University. He was employed with the Haryana health department as a doctor for 10 years before he set up his own hospital in Hisar. His spouse Pratima Gupta is a retired government doctor.
During his student days, Gupta was an active student politician and was influenced by the ideology of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological parent of the BJP.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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