‘Nehru Didn’t Give UNSC Permanent Seat to China’: Shashi Tharoor

“The BJP prefers to fight over the past because they have failed India in the present,” Tharoor said.

Shashi Tharoor also took a dig at the BJP, saying it “prefers to fight over the past because they have failed India in the present and can offer no hope for the future” 

(Photo: TNM/Altered by The Quint)

Amid the resurfacing of claims regarding former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru having rejected an offer for India to be a permanent member in the United Nations Security Council, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Friday, 15 March, took to Twitter to clarify his stand on the issue.

Taking a dig at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – saying it "prefers to fight over the past because they have failed India in the present and can offer no hope for the future" – Tharoor pointed out that Nehru did not "give the Indian permanent seat to China," as there was no Indian seat to give.

The Congress leader claimed that the first prime minister of independent India called on the other permanent members (of the UNSC) to admit Communist China (PRC) to the UN and give it the permanent seat held by Taiwan, but the US was unwilling to do the same and a suggestion was made that India takes over the Chinese permanent seat.

“Nehru felt this was wrong and would compound one injustice to China with another. He said the RoC seat should be given to PRC and India should one day get a permanent seat in its own right.”

Shashi Tharoor, in his tweet

A post that has resurfaced after China blocked India's bid to designate JeM founder Masood Azhar as a global terrorist in the UNSC claimed that the US offered Nehru a permanent seat for India at the UN in 1950, but Nehru rejected the offer.

"Again Russia offered a permanent seat at the UN Security in 1955. Again he rejected it and ensured China got this seat," the post further claimed.