New Delhi: The Congress today continued to embarass both BJP and its senior leader L K Advani for his remarks that he did not know about his party colleague Jaswant Singh accompanying terrorists to Kandahar by seeking to drive a wedge in the saffron party.

Congress dubbed Advani, the saffron party's Prime Ministerial candidate, as a "lame duck" Home Minister in 1999 but showered sympathy on A B Vajpayee.

AICC Media Department Chairman M Veerappa Moily asked if Advani was not aware of Singh going with the terrorists, this raised questions about the flow of information in the government and about his competence.

"If the Deputy Prime Minister was not happy with the decision to release the terrorists, why did he go along with the decision?" he said.

He said "exchange of terrorists for 161 passengers was a momentous decision in NDA rule. Why did Advani not resign as Home Minister"?

Moily alleged the development also showed the then Home Minister did not enjoy the trust of the cabinet and the Kandahar episode showed "total failure" of the cabinet system in the country.

As against this, he quoted Advani as having said on January four,2000,that he fully supported the government s decision to release the terrorists in exchange for hostages.

Moily said Congress has a lot of sympathy for Vajpayee as a person as he "failed" to function as Prime Minister.

He dismissed suggestions that Congress was responsible for the demolition of the Babri Masjid saying the responsibility should be shared by Advani and his BJP colleagues.

Source : PTI