Jammu & Kashmir will remain an integral part of India," declared senior BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi emphatically at the United Nations.
In his address to the UN Peacekeeping operations, the Pakistani representative mentioned Pakistan's association with UN peacekeepers since 1948, when the UN deployed its peacekeepers on the disputed territory of Jammu & Kashmir.
Terming it "non-issue," Trivedi said Pakistan was trying to divert the attention of the house from its main agenda.
Right of Reply (ROR) by the experienced leader, he said: "The Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir was, is and will remain the integral part of India."
He waved this one aside as well, talking about the fact that in recent times Pakistan has been blessed with democratic processes whereby elections took place in Jammu and Kashmir and the people chose their government. Trivedi appealed to Pakistan to stop fake rhetoric because no amount of rhetoric was going to change the reality.
Not wanting to digress from the topic at hand, Trivedi concluded, "In deference to fellow members of this forum, India will exercise restraint to not respond to any further attempts by Pakistan to abuse the procedures of the UN.".
In a companion post to this on his X handle, Trivedi elaborated that, in view of the recent democratic elections in Jammu and Kashmir for both Parliament and the J&K Assembly, "the United Nations forum cannot be used in mentioning this type of non-substantive and misleading terms."
Record voter turnouts in these elections, along with the active participation of the people, were seen as a means of strengthening democracy.
According to him, it is due to the firm foreign policies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that have brought about this progress as, according to him, "it is the strong and assertive India on the international stage that has made all the difference."
