BJP President Rajnath Singh said on Wednesday that "all was well with the party."
Click to play videoNew Delhi: After Arun Shourie, another senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader - Yashwant Sinha - has come out against the party's decision to sack Jaswant Singh for his controversial book praising Pakistan's founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah, saying the move "was not right".
"I agree things would have been handled diffrently if former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was actively participating in the decision making of the party. It was not right for the party to have taken that decision on Jaswant Singh who has served the party for 30 long years and who was one of the founding members of the party," Sinha, a former finance minister, told CNN-IBN in reply to a question on the expulsion of Jaswant Singh last week.
He said that the BJP should not have taken such a decision for a leader "who has served the party for 30 years".
"It was not right for the party to take that decision," he added.
This is the first time Sinha has commented on the expulsion of Jaswant Singh for his book Jinnah: India - Partition - Independence, in which he has praised Jinnah.
Yashwant Sinha also contested L K Advani's contention that he was not aware of Jaswant Singh going to Kandahar during 1999 hijacking incident, saying the decision in this regard was taken at a meeting in which the then home minister was present.
"All of us, including Advani, were present at the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS). The meeting decided that three terrorists should be released and Jaswant Singh should travel to Kandahar to take any decision on the spot," Sinha, then finance minister, was quoted by news agency PTI as saying.
"We are all party to that decision," he said while recalling that the CCS meeting had taken place on December 31, 1999.
On Thursday, former national security advisor (NSA) Brajesh Mishra also went on a tirade against the party saying L K Advani was part of the decisions taken "unanimously" by the then Cabinet Committee on Security regarding the release of militants to save 160 hostages on the hijacked Indian Airlines plane - IC814 - in 1999.
Advani, a senior BJP leader, was home minister in the then NDA government and has claimed that he was unaware of then foreign minister Jaswant Singh accompanying three freed terrorists for securing the release of 160 hostages was not true.
ALL WELL WITH BJP: RAJNATH SINGH TO NEWS AGENCY IANS |
Asked about the bickering in the party, he said: "Just wait and watch; and let me assure you that we will emerge even stronger." When asked about BJP leader Arun Shourie calling him "Humpty-Dumpty", Singh shot back, "So what? How does it matter to you?" The BJP has been caught in a string of crisis that has seen the expulsion of former cabinet minister Jaswant Singh, a revolt in its Rajasthan unit, and strong criticism of the party leadership by Rajya Sabha member Arun Shourie. |
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