B.R. Ambedkar was against special status for Kashmir under Article 370 and wanted a uniform civil code for citizens irrespective of religion, BJP MP Udit Raj, himself a Dalit, on Saturday said.

Opposition of Article 370 and support for a common civil code have been core issues for the BJP and its predecessor Jana Sangh.

Dr. Raj disagrees with the widespread perception that the views of the BJP and those of Dr. Ambedkar — who left Hinduism and embraced Buddhism with many followers — are intrinsically divergent.

“Dr. Ambedkar did not favour a special status for Kashmir just because it was a border State, holding that even Punjab, U.P. and Bihar and the north-eastern States were border States. So, Nehru got others to draft Article 370,” Dr. Raj told The Hindu.

“He also supported a uniform civil code irrespective of religion. Because we were not that mature a democracy in those days and there was not enough education, this vision was postponed by putting it under the Directive Principles of State Policy.” Dr. Raj, a former bureaucrat, has been an Ambedkarite for long before he joined the party and successfully contested on its ticket in 2014 from the national capital.