Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and members of his cabinet were all lined up at the airport when a special plane carrying 18-year-old son of now exiled Maharaja Hari Singh landed in Srinagar on the mid-morning of June 20, 1949. In a process conceived and guided by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Deputy Prime Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the young Karan Singh was flying in from Delhi to take over as Regent, the Constitutional Head and therefore, technically, the boss of Sheikh Abdullah. The event involved complex emotions for both. Sheikh was welcoming someone with whose father he had a long running enmity. Karan Singh had knowledge of the fact that his father was forced to leave Jammu and Kashmir because of Sheikh. How then relations evolved between the two is a matter of interest. In this episode, I offer you insights into this early evolution of Raj Bhawan, the relationship between executive head and constitutional head before it came to a tipping point in 1953.
