Jaswant Singh expelled from BJP

Shimla, Aug 19 (PTI) Jaswant Singh, whose book
eulogising Mohd Ali Jinnah has come under attack from
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Sangh parivar, was
Wednesday expelled from the BJP.

The decision to expel Singh, a Lok Sabha (Lower House
of Indian Parliament) member and a former Union Minister, was
taken at the Parliamentary Board of the party which met here
during the opening session of the three-day brainstorming
session of the top leaders here.

BJP President Rajnath Singh, who had Tuesday issued
a statement totally distancing the party from Jaswant Singh's
book "Jinnah - India, Partition, Independence", announced the
decision to the media here.

"I had issued a statement yesterday that the party
fully dissociates itself from the contents of the book. Today
I put up the matter before the Parliamentary Board which
decided to end his primary membership.

"So he has been expelled. From now onwards he will not
not be a member of any body of the party or be an office
bearer," he said on the expulsion of the 71-year-old party
veteran.

Rajnath Singh said yesterday he had told Jaswant Singh
not not to come to Shimla for participating in the 'chintan
baithak'.

Jaswant Singh has been having an uneasy relationship
with the party leadership ever since the Lok Sabha elections
on which he had circulated a note demanding thorough
discussion on the debacle.

Jaswant Singh, who had held the posts of Finance,
Defence and External Affairs under Atal Bihari Vajpayee, was
virtually declared a persona non grata when the entire BJP top
brass and other leaders kept away from the function on Monday
in the capital for the release of his book.

Singh, who had served with the Territorial Army, was
elected to Lok Sabha from Darjeeling in West Bengal with the
support of Gorkhaland outfit.

That things were not not well with Jaswant Singh was
clear this morning when he did not not stir out of his hotel
even after the brainstorming session began in Peterhof, the
venue of the session. His aides kept saying that he was not
not well and was resting.

Rajnath Singh took a break from the brainstorming
session to come and brief the media on the expulsion decision.

The party was averse to Jinnah and even L K Advani had
to backtrack on his comments about the founder of Pakistan
after a visit to that country in 2005.

He was made to step down as BJP President and the
party adopted a resolution condemning Jinnah's role in the
Partition.

In the aftermath of the Lok Sabha debacle, Jaswant
Singh had criticised Advani's appointment of Parliamentary
office bearers and called for a link between "performance and
rewards". He was then considered to be a dissident along
with leaders like Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie.

However, the party sought to delink him from the other
dissidents by nominating him the Chairman of the prestigeous
Public Accounts Committee of Parliament. PTI RC
DDC