Naidu rubbishes Jaswant claims on Vajyapee's offer to quit

Senior BJP leader M Venkaiah Naidu today rubbished Jaswant Singh's claim that Atal Bihari Vajpayee wanted to resign as prime minister after the 2002 Gujarat riots and wondered how one can trust the statements of a person who has himself admitted to lying on the Kandahar issue.

"Mr Jaswant Singh himself said yesterday, 'I did not speak truth at that time (on the Kandahar hijacking issue)'. So, once he admitted it then how come you go on relying on those statements?" Naidu told reporters here.

Asked about Singh's statement that Vajpayee wanted to resign after the 2002 Gujarat riots, Naidu said he was "not aware of any such thing".

Naidu, who was the party president at that time, however, admitted that Vajpayee was disturbed by the happenings in Gujarat in the aftermath of the Godhra incident.

"Of course, Atalji was very much disturbed about what had happened at that time as the prime minister of the country and has spoken about it also," Naidu said.

The Rajya Sabha MP sought to playdown claims made by Singh that home minister LK Advani knew he was accompanying the three terrorists to the Afghan city. The three were freed in exchange of the IC-814 hijacked plane passengers.

Dismissing Singh's claims, Naidu said, "neither the country nor the people are interested in these issues. They are issues of the past".