NEW DELHI, SEPT 9: The Bharatiya Janata Party today lambasted the Congress for criticising the government's handling of the Kashmir issue at the NAM summit in South Africa saying that Congress spokesman Natwar Singh's remarks were unwarranted and displayed his ignorance of what happened in Durban.``If there was any diplomatic lapse in South Africa, it was during the years when Natwar Singh's party and later the United Front were in power'', said BJP general secretary M Venkaiah Naidu. If Prime Minister Atal Behari Had Vajpayee not pointed out to Nelson Mandela that any reference to Kashmir was unacceptable, there would not have been a subsequent apology, he added.
Advising the Congress to keep the nation's interests in mind, Naidu pointed out that since 1993, the United Nations Secretary General had been referring to Kashmir in his annual reports. But the Congress, though it was in power, had kept silent and this had encouraged subsequent references, he said.
In its effort to politicise every issue, the Congress had lost sight of right and wrong, he added. The BJP leader said the party was not surprised at the Congress decision to send special teams to South Africa and China which was obviously meant to rubbish the Government of India from foreign soil.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.