Corbyn’s Kashmir tweet embarrasses Cong
The Congress party on Thursday distanced itself from its unit in the UK, saying it is not authorised to talk on India's internal matters with outsiders. The provocation for the outburst came after Labour Party Chief Jeremy Corbyn claimed he had met local members of the Congress party and discussed "human rights situation" in Jammu and Kashmir.
Corbyn in his tweet claimed that in a meeting with the IOC and its members the need for "de-escalation" of "violence" and "fear" i n Kashmir was talked about.
Party spokesperson Anand Sharma expressed shock at this "misrepresentation" and said the UK unit is only supposed to be confined to Indian diaspora and not discuss policy issues with outsiders. The Labour leader, whose stand on Kashmir has not gone down well with the Indian government, also tweeted a picture of the meeting.
Earlier, the BJP lashed out at the Congress over its "shameful shenanigans" and demanded an explanation from it on the meeting. The Congress responded by accusing the BJP of making "malicious statements" to distract people from its failures. It tweeted that BJP has failed to answer questions on slowdown, unemployment and banking crisis and is resorting to spreading lies instead.
The UK unit of the Indian Overseas Congress has claimed it had met Corbyn to condemn the Kashmir resolution passed by his party and reiterate to them that Jammu and Kashmir is an internal matter and no intervention will be accepted.
Kamal Dhaliwal told India Today, "The issue of Kashmir was raised by Corbyn himself but the spokesperson of IOC Sudhakar Goud objected clarifying that 'wherever we Indians might be sitting in the world we do not allow any political party to interfere with the internal matters of India'."