Yashwant Sinha flays Jaswant Singh's expulsion

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 said 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.