Venkaiah Naidu justifies Jaswant's ouster from BJP

BJP senior leader M Venkaiah Naidu today justified the expulsion of Jaswant Singh for expressing his views against the party's basic ideology.

"Though the expulsion of Jaswant Singh was 'painful' it was necessary," he told reporters here.

"It was well established principles of BJP that all should abide by the party's ideology and its policies. No one has liberty to write or express their views against party's ideology," Naidu said.

The party was forced to take such extreme step against Singh as some of the contents in the book were against the basic ideology of the saffron outfit, he said.

Referring to the Kandahar issue raised by Singh, the BJP leader said "I do not understand the reason for raising the issue now after his expulsion from the party. He could have spoken at that time itself".