‘Sardar Patel had told Liaqat Ali Khan to take Kashmir’, Says Soz

New Delhi: Former Union Minister and Senior Congress leader Saif-Ud-Din Soz was on Tuesday reported to have said that Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel had told then Pakistan Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan to take Kashmir, “but don’t talk of Hyderabad”.
“Sardar Patel was a pragmatist and 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,” a media report quoted Soz as saying so on the sidelines of the launch of his book in Delhi on Monday.
Soz was recently caught in a controversy over his endorsement to the four point conflict resolution of former Pakistan President General (Retd.) Pervez Musharraf on Kashmir.
In his book ‘Kashmir: Glimpses of History and the Story of Struggle’, Soz had said 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 was quoted as saying in the report.