By IANS,
New Delhi : Expelled Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Jaswant Singh Friday triggered yet another controversy claiming that he “covered up” for L.K. Advani during the 2009 Lok Sabha campaign by concealing that the party’s prime ministerial candidate knew of the terrorist-hostage swap during the 1999 plane hijacking.
“I covered up for Advani…Advani always knew that I was accompanying the terrorists to Kandahar,” Jaswant Singh, former external affairs minister, said in an interview to NDTV.
Jaswant Singh also said Advani, who was home minister then, was present at the meeting where it was decided that he would accompany the terrorists who were handed over in exchange for the freedom of the passengers on the hijacked IC 814 plane in 1999.
Asked why he had stated otherwise during the election campaign of 2009, the former external affairs minister said he was “conservative with the truth” because he thought it his duty to protect Advani.
He conceded that the shadow of the 2002 Gujarat riots continued to tarnish the BJP’s image.
And he also claimed that then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was set to take action against state Chief Minister Narendra Modi for it, but was stopped by Advani who said “bahut bawal khada ho jayega (It will create a big problem)”.
Targeting the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the BJP’s ideological forbear, Jaswant Singh said the organisation needed to decide once and for all if it was in politics or not.
The RSS usually projects itself from being away from the BJP and its affairs, but is known to advise it from time to time and the party follows it.
Commenting on party MP Varun Gandhi for his hate speeches during the Lok Sabha election campaign, Jaswant Singh said he believed that Varun was “not extremist but his comments were” and the entire issue had been mishandled by the party that failed to take a clear position on him.
Jaswant Singh, who has held defence, finance and external affairs portfolios in BJP-led governments, was Wednesday expelled from the party for his controversial book “Jinnah: India, Partition, Independence” in which he has praised Pakistan founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah.
His book created a huge controversy for it went against the BJP’s position that Jinnah was responsible for the country’s partition. Singh also blamed India’s first home minister Sardar Patel and first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru for the partition.