New Delhi, August 28: Senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha, who had raised questions of accountability in the wake of poll drubbing, today launched a fresh attack on the party leadership by criticising the expulsion of Jaswant Singh.
He also was sharply critical of the way in which a leader of Jaswant Singh’s standing was peremptorily expelled without even a show cause notice being issued.
“Jaswant Singh was dealt with unfairly. Though I do not agree with Jaswant Singh’s assessment of Jinnah, still, I feel it was not a disciplinary matter at all,” the former External Affairs Minister told news agencies here.
He said it was not right for the party to take decisions so summarily against somebody who has been in the party for 30 years and had been a founder-member of the party.
Emphasising that writing a book does not constitute indiscipline, he said “the party president had already distanced himself from the contents of Jaswant Singh’s book. That should have been enough.”
He said the whole “expulsion process was faulty” as even a show cause notice was not issued to Jaswant Singh.
To a question, he said “things would have been handled differently” in the party if Atal Bihari Vajpayee had been in charge.
Sinha, who had attacked the party as not doing a proper introspection of the electoral defeat, had resigned from all the posts in July as a mark of protest. He was nominated to the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament as a member but the party did not make him its Chairman.
Vajpayee would not have sacked Jaswant sans notice: Brajesh
In a veiled criticism of the BJP leadership including LK Advani, former national security advisor Brajesh Mishra today said that Jaswant Singh would not have been summarily expelled for his views on MA Jinnah if Atal Bihari Vajpayee had been active in the party.
Mishra, who was a close aide of Vajpayee, also said that the former prime minister would be “deeply hurt” by the present situation in the BJP.
“Certainly not. Not without asking him (Jaswant), please explain. Certainly not,” he told Karan Thapar in CNN-IBN’s Devil’s Advocate programme.
He was asked what would have been Vajpayee’s course of action and would he have expelled Singh.
Mishra said that Vajpayee would not have criticised Jaswant Singh for his remarks on Jinnah because he did not criticise Advani when he called Jinnah secular in 2005 during his visit to Pakistan.
He said Vajpayee also did not believe in actions like banning of books or this or that.
Asked whether Vajpayee would be hurt by current squabbles in BJP, he said Vajpayee would be “deeply hurt” about the situation in the party.
–Agencies