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PM knew of Kargil on May 4, says Govindacharya

Prime Minister A B Vajpayee came to know of the Kargil intrusion on May 4 this year, BJP general secretary K N Govindacharya said today.

The BJP leader made the statement in response to a clarification sought during his debate with Congress spokesman Kapil Sibal at a 'Face-off' programme.

The statement comes in the wake of conflicting reports quoting Defence Minister George Fernandes and Information and Broadcasting Minister Pramod Mahajan.

According to Fernandes, it was May 6, while Mahajan had initially given April 6 as the date, but subsequently said it was a slip of the tongue and corrected it as May 6. Govindacharya, however, parried a question whether the BJP, in the case of forming the next government, was prepared to set up a Joint Parliamentary Committee or order a CBI probe into the intelligence failure and other lapses relating to the Kargil conflict.

Citing reported distribution of religious material and 'rakhis' to the armed forces, Sibal attacked the BJP and its parent bodies for politicising the armed forces at the cost of national security.

Sibal said the Kargil conflict in itself amounted to a scam as the money paid for sugar imports from Pakistan was utilised for fighting the war by the hostile neighbour.

Blaming the Congress on the same issue, Govindacharya said his party and the government led by it never claimed credit for the Kargil victory. On the other hand, the Congress was trying to ''trivialise'' the victory of the nation and its armed forces.

The two leaders also had a heated debate on the issue of secularism, with Sibal criticising the BJP on its stand on the Ayodhya, special status to Jammu and Kashmir and Common Civil Code, and the ruling party leader blaming the Congress for the problems in Jammu and Kashmir and its vote-bank politics.

Rejecting Congress leader Manmohan Singh's allegation against RSS activists at a press meet at the same venue yesterday, Govindacharya said the late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi's statement that ''when a big tree falls the earth trembles'' clearly showed who were involved in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in the wake of the assassination of Indira Gandhi.

UNI

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