Nehru "original sinner", favoured China for UNSC seat, says Jaitley
New Delhi, Mar 14: Hitting back at the Congress, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Thursday said first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was the "original sinner" who favoured China over India for permanent membership into the United Nation Security Council.
This comes within hours of Congress President Rahul Gandhi terming Prime Minister Narendra Modi as "weak" and "scared" of Chinese President Xi Jinping after Beijing blocked a UN resolution to designate JeM chief Masood Azhar a global terrorist.
"The original mistake, both on Kashmir and China, was committed by the same person," said Jaitley while quoting a letter written by Nehru to Chief Ministers on August 2, 1955.
Jaitley, who heads the publicity committee of the BJP for the ensuing general elections, has quoted a part of the letter.
"Pt. Nehru's infamous letter to Chief Ministers' dated August 2, 1955, states 'Informally, suggestions have been made by the United States that China should be taken into the United Nations but not in the Security Council, & that India should take her place in the Security Council.
"..We cannot, of course, accept this as it means falling out with China and it would be very unfair for a great country like China not to be in the Security Council," he said in a series of tweets.
Taking a jibe at Rahul Gandhi, Jaitley asked, "Will the Congress President tell us who the original sinner was?"
India's bid to designate the chief of Pakistan-based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed as a global terrorist suffered a setback with China putting a technical hold on a proposal to ban him following the Pulwama terror attack.
The proposal to designate Azhar under the 1267 Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee of the UNSC was moved by France, the UK and the US on February 27, days after a suicide bomber of the JeM killed 44 CRPF soldiers in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama, leading to a flare-up in tensions between India and Pakistan.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
