Scores of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders including party president Amit Shah today raised slogans like ‘Kashmir hamara hai’, ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ at the party headquarters in Delhi to mark the 118th birth anniversary of Jan Sangh founder Shyama Prasad Mookerjee. When Amit Shah arrived at the party office to pay floral tributes to Mookerjee, enthusiastic workers greeted him by raising slogans. They were joined by Shah who chanted: “Jaha balidaan hue Mookerjee, wo Kashmir hamara hai” (Where Mookerjee sacrificed himself, that Kashmir is ours).
Later, Shah paid floral tribute to Mookerjee and proceeded towards his office.
Shyama Prasad Mookerjee was born to a family of a judge in Calcutta (now Kolkata) on July 6, 1906. He had served as a minister in the Jawaharlal Nehru-led first Congress government post-Independence. But in 1951, he quit the Congress to form Bharatiya Jana Sangh. In 1952 elections, the Jana Sangh had won three parliamentary seats which included one seat of Mookerjee.
He was opposed to Article 370 in Kashmir and fought against it throughout his life. On May 11, 1953, Mookerjee was arrested when he tried to cross the border. He died of a cardiac arrest on June 23 the same year in Kashmir.