The Hindu : New Delhi News : Cabinet panel decided to send me to Kandahar, says Jaswant

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Cabinet panel decided to send me to Kandahar, says Jaswant

New Delhi: In remarks that are at variance with those of L.K. Advani, senior BJP leader Jaswant Singh on Saturday said the decision to send him to Kandahar in 1999 during the Indian Airlines plane hijack crisis was taken by the Cabinet Committee on Security and the then Home Minister could have “forgotten” it.

“It was a decision of the Cabinet Committee on Security,” Mr. Singh told reporters here when asked about the then External Affairs Minister accompanying three terrorists to Kandahar to seek release of 156 people held hostage on the hijacked plane.

When referred to Mr. Advani’s recent remarks that he was not aware about Mr. Singh going to Kandahar as the CCS had not taken any such decision, Mr. Singh said the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha “would either have forgotten or have been absent from the meeting.”

In an interview, Mr. Advani had said: “I wouldn’t know that [Singh is going]. He [Singh] must have consulted [the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari] Vajpayeeji... I don’t think I am answerable for that. If the CCS had taken the decision, I would have been answerable but it did not.”

Pressed further on the issue, Mr. Singh said he was not seeking to refute what his “leader” had said.

“Do you expect me to refute what Advaniji has said? How can I say that my leader [Advani] is not correct? How can the leader be wrong? Whatever he is saying is correct,” Mr. Singh said.

He said the steps taken by the government were in accordance with the decision arrived at an all-party meeting.

Mr. Singh claimed Mr. Vajpayee did not subscribe to his former aide Brajesh Mishra’s views on the India-U.S. Nuclear Deal.

“I have met Vajpayeeji. He has said that he has nothing to do with what the former National Security Advisor Adviser has said on the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal,” Mr. Singh SAID.

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