Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday accused the country's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru of internationalising the Kashmir issue by taking it to the United Nations and said India's neighbour was still misusing it. The minister targeted the Congress on the issue while replying to a discussion on the Budget 2022-23 for the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir (J-K) in Rajya Sabha. "The Congress internationalised the issue. It was our first Prime Minister Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru ji who took it to the United Nations in December 1947. Why? "The issue was internationalised and our neighbour is still misusing it. Who is responsible for this," Sitharaman said. The minister said the Kashmir issue should not have gone to a global forum. ''It is essentially an Indian issue. We could have handled it. We are handling it, and we are showing the difference now," she said, maintaining that Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India. Senior Congress leader Anand Sharma, however, sought to defend Nehru's actions. "I would like to set the record straight. If the matter was taken to the UN Security Council, the issue was whether there would be a cessation of the military conflict or not. India did not accept the plebiscite,'' he said intervening in the minister's reply. "The UN Observers' Office was never given that sanctity. India conducted elections. There were elected governments in the state of Jammu & Kashmir. "'Not only that, we fought wars and we made it very clear repeatedly, and this has been India's consistent position, prior to 2014, that Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh are an integral part of the sovereign State of India," Sharma added.