By IANS,
Jammu : Former union minister Karan Singh Friday affirmed that the accession of Jammu and Kashmir with India was the same as that of any other state with the country.
Clarifying the nature of the accession, Karan Singh, son of last Dogra king Maharaja Hari Singh who had signed instrument of accession with India Oct 26, 1947, said: “The accession of Jammu and Kashmir signed by my father was the same as that of any other state including Juagadh and Hyderabad.”
He was talking to reporters on the sidelines of a function in Jammu.
“Later, the states of Hyderabad and Juagadh had signed a merger agreement with India, Jammu and Kashmir had not. Our state has a special status, a separate constitution and it has special status within the Indian union under Article 370,” Karan Singh, who was the first head of the state after independence, said.
The title of the head of the state then was ‘Sadar-e-Riysat’ or president of the state. In 1964, the nomenclature was changed and thereafter Governor appointed by the president of India came to head the state.
The issue of accession ran into fresh controversy after the Oct 6 speech of Chief Minister Omar Abdullah in the state legislative assembly in which he said that the state’s accession was in different circumstances than that of other states.