The Hindu : Front Page : BJP rules out action against Jaswant Singh

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BJP rules out action against Jaswant Singh

Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday ruled out any disciplinary action against senior leader Jaswant Singh for the “open letter” he had circulated at the party’s core committee meeting on Wednesday.

“There is no proposal, no issue before the party regarding Mr. Jaswant Singh. There is no question of any action,” party spokesperson Rajiv Pratap Rudy said here.

“There is nothing to indicate there was any act of misdemeanour by Mr. Singh. He raised some issues at a party forum and these have been flagged and will be discussed.”

The party was formally denying reports on some television channels that action was being contemplated against Mr. Singh. There was a meeting between party president Rajnath Singh and Leader of the Opposition L.K. Advani, where, presumably, the leak of information to the press about Mr. Jaswant Singh’s “open letter” and other issues were discussed. One issue was the writing of an article by Mr. Advani’s aide Sudheendra Kulkarni, after the elections, publicly criticising the BJP’s political and organisational structure as well as its ideological moorings in Hindutva.

Mr. Rudy emphasised that no one need compare Mr. Jaswant Singh with Sudheendra Kulkarni, “who was not at all a member of the BJP.”

Moreover, “Mr. Kulkarni was part of the party’s committee for election strategy and part of every decision made related to the election campaign. If after May 16 he has suddenly found some faults he should first apportion blame to himself [before finding fault with others]. Till May 16 he was part of the decision-making process; then on May 17 he suddenly writes as if he is an independent journalist,” Mr. Rudy said.

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