BJP’s prime ministerial candidate LK Advani’s autobiography My Country, My Life has given rise to a big controversy.
Advani said he wasn’t aware Jaswant would accompany terrorists
NEW DELHI: BJP’s prime ministerial candidate LK Advani’s autobiography My Country, My Life has given rise to a big controversy. The BJP is hard put to explain the facts of the Kandahar episode in which three terrorists were exchanged for 160 hijacked passengers of India Airlines flight IC-814. Jaswant Singh, the man who could have said something to help matters, has maintained silence so far on the issue.
BJP spokesperson Rajiv Pratap Rudy said that Advani did not know whether the then foreign minister Jaswant Singh was going on the plane that had carried terrorists. “Advaniji was aware of the decision taken in the cabinet committee on security that the passengers should be brought back safely. However, he was not in the loop about the procedure to be followed to bring back the 160 passengers,” Rudy said.
He said that the release of terrorists and Jaswant Singh’s escorting them to Kandahar are two different aspects of the same episode. Advani was not aware of the procedural aspect of the release, which was a sub-issue, said Rudy, adding that Advani was never dissociated from the handling of the crisis.
Advani, who was then deputy prime minister, told a TV news channel that he did not know Singh would accompany the terrorists to Kandahar. At the same time, Advani was categorical that no money was paid to the terrorists. This created doubt that if he was not aware that Jaswant would accompany the terrorists, how could he be certain about that no money was paid.
Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said, “It is mind-boggling that the (then) home minister was not aware that the foreign minister was going to Afghanistan. What kind of a home minister was he?” asked Singhvi.
Advani’s account of the episode also varies with what Jaswant Singh wrote in his book A Call To Honour. Singh wrote that the cabinet initially decided against releasing terrorists and he came out and announced this to the media. When he went in again, it was reconsidered and overturned.
s_rajesh@dnaindia.net
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