A quintessential rebel, BJP terms Yashwant Sinha's exit a 'good riddance'

The resignation of BJP's quintessential rebel, former NDA-1 minister Yashwant Sinha, from the party on Saturday reminds one of his resignation as vice-president of the party in 2009, when he had rebelled against now-marginalised LK Advani, in whose boat he ironically found himself in the Narendra Modi era.

The circumstances and his grievances, then and now, have remained the same: he was not being given his due, he felt, in the face of an onslaught from the younger generation. But, then Sinha's son Jayant Sinha was given a ministerial berth in the Modi council and he is serving as MoS Civil Aviation. Sinha ensured that Jayant succeeded him on the Hazaribagh seat in Bihar from where the latter won with a whopping margin in 2014.

Last time Sinha was 71 when he quit as V-P and joined ranks with another rebel Jaswant Singh who was also 71 then. Now he has joined hands with the Opposition parties, sharing dais with Congress leader Renuka Chaudhary and AAP representatives Ashutosh and Sanjay Singh in Patna as he announced his exit from the platform of his own ostensibly non-political outfit 'Rashtra Manch'.

Having given the party many an embarrassing moments in the recent past, as he went after the Prime Minister himself on a host of issues ranging from demonetization to GST and Kashmir, the party has considered it a "good riddance".

BJP's head of foreign affairs department Vijay Chauthaiwale took potshots at Sinha. Tagging a news item that read Sinha drops "bombshell", Chauthaiwale tweeted: "It's not "bombshell" it's only "empty shell"".

In yet another tweet, he said: "Mr Yashwant Sinha, That's really a grave injustice to media and opposition parties who supported you strongly for last three years. Ideally you should either join Congress or National Herald."

BJP spokesperson Zafar Islam said Sinha's exit would not dent the BJP whatsoever. "For the past many years he was not making any positive contribution to the party, rather, was engaged in creating commotion in the party. While we agree that he made a big contribution in the past, but that cannot be a licence to making disturbances. The party is trying to shape India into a developed nation, trying to uplift the downtrodden through the politics of development, and he is concerned with only himself."