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MPs to campaign for Kohinoor's return

IANS, New Delhi
A group of Indian MPs is ready for a diplomatic pitch to reclaim the Kohinoor diamond, appropriated during the British Raj and rumoured to be soon gifted to the queen-inwaiting, Camilla Parker Bowles.
A motion signed by at least 150 MPs would be raised in the coming Parliament session, senior Rajya Sabha member Kuldip Nayar said. "The Kohinoor belongs to us. It must come back to us," he asserted.
Nayar, a persistent campaigner for the return of the Kohinoor to India, said the gem was not a property of British royals that could be passed around from head to head.
"The Kohinoor was usurped by the British during their colonial rule over India. It is not their personal property that can be passed on to the queen's daughter-in-law," he said. "I am bringing a motion for its return to India in the next session."
Last month, reports suggested
that the royal family had worked out a discreet plan to give the crown studded with the 108-carat diamond to Parker Bowles if her relationship with future king Prince Charles was formalised.
Nayar said that he had written to the ministry of external affairs asking it to take up the matter forcefully with the British government.
"Everybody here wants the Kohinoor back. It is our property that is lying in the Tower of London and being treated as the crown's personal possession," he added.
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had, during the centenary celebrations of Maharaja Ranjit Singh of Punjab, assured the organising committee that India would "create conditions that would embarrass the British government into surrendering the Kohinoor".
Nayar also stepped up his campaign after reports that British Prime Minister Tony Blair had set up a committee to consider the return of
the Elgin Marbles to Greece and Jewish relics to Israel.
Looking at the failure of past efforts, the MP knows he is fighting against odds. "(The campaign) may not have the desired effect because this government does not have a backbone even if it agrees that the Kohinoor should come back."
The Kohinoor crown belonged to the Queen Mother who died last year, leaving precise instructions for the future of the diamond with a long and intriguing past.
The Kohinoor, or 'mountain of light', is one of the brightest in the 3,000-odd crown jewels of the historic Tower of London, the former seat of power.
Brought from India in 1849, the gem was reduced in weight from 186-1/16 carats to 106-1/16 to fit into the state crown for the 1937 coronation of the Queen Mother, who rarely wore it in her lifetime but wanted it displayed on her coffin before her burial.