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Explain Karan Singh's position on Kashmir, BJP tells Congress

Bharatiya Janata Party leadership has trained its guns on Dr Karan Singh, the Congress candidate from the Lucknow Lok Sabha constituency, raising doubts about his credentials as a principled politician.

Dr Karan Singh, who filed his nomination against Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, has been dubbed a 'non-serious', 'unprincipled' and 'self-centred' politician by the BJP leaders.

While party ideologue K N Govindacharya has called him the villain of the excesses during emergency, senior party leader Madan Lal Khurana today questioned his role as a national leader in respect of the Kashmir issue.

Talking to newsperson in Lucknow, Khurana said the former sadar-e-riasat of Kashmir had openly supported Dr Farooq Abdullah on the issue of maintaining pre-1953 position in Kashmir. It meant Dr Singh was a party to Dr Abdullah's declaration which was against the Constitution, he pointed out.

He said till recently Dr Karan Singh was in the National Conference and his son was still a minister in the Farooq Abdullah ministry. How would Dr Singh justify his son Ajatshatru's statement about maintaining status quo at the Line of Control on the Indo-Pak border? he asked.

Levelling a series of allegations, Khurana said Singh was even made the chairman of the autonomy committee which had on its top terms of reference, the implementation of the issue of pre - 1953 position in Kashmir.

He said the former ruler of Kashmir was shirking from his responsibility when he said he had resigned from the committee within six months of its constitution. Why did he not resign immediately when he came to know of the terms of reference? he asked.

He demanded that the Congress clarify its stand on Dr. Singh's candidature as well as on his views about Kashmir.

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