Congress created Kashmir row not BJP says Venkaiah Naidu

Union Information and Broadcasting Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday urged the Congress party not to politicise the existing situation in Jammu and Kashmir.

"The Jammu and Kashmir issue is a Congress creation. Had it been left to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel who successfully unified 565 princely states, he would have tackled it successfully," Naidu told reporters here.

Naidu was responding to senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad's statement that violence and failure of governance in Jammu and Kashmir were matters of grave national concern and that the NDA regime was doing nothing about it.

"You (Congress) have taken it on yourself. Now, the Congress party is trying to create problems for the country by making it political. You are hard on nationalists and soft on terrorists.you sympathise with the Al Ummah and try to find fault with the RSS," said Naidu.

Reacting to reports that some Congress leaders in Kerala were planning to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Naidu said the saffron party is not making any efforts in this direction.

"No wise men and women can stay in the Congress as it is a sinking ship. It has deviated from reality," Naidu added.

The Congress-led delegation had submitted a memorandum on alleged irregularities in EVMs to President Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday.

After meeting President Mukherjee, Azad said that the alleged tampering of EVMs, and the backdoor entry by the BJP to form the governments in Goa and Manipur, have raised questions about the electoral process in the country.

Azad said the united opposition sought the president's intervention to maintain constitutional safeguards in India.