|
Shimla:
Senior BJP leader and former External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh
was today expelled from the party for his controversial book in
which he had said the founder of Pakistan Mohammad Ali Jinnah was
not responsible for Partition.
The decision to expel Jaswant Singh
who won the LS election recently was taken at the Parliamentary
Board of the party which met here during the opening session of the
three-day brainstorming session of the top leaders.
BJP President Rajnath Singh, who had
yesterday issued a statement totally distancing the party from
Jaswant Singh's book "Jinnah - India, Partition, Independence",
announced the decision to the media here.
"I had issued a statement yesterday that the party fully dissociates
itself from the contents of the book. Today I put up the matter
before the Parliamentary Board that decided to end his primary
membership and expel him from the party", Rajnath Singh said to the
media.
He said Jaswant Singh, who was
asked
to stay back in a hotel
and did not attend the meeting, had been conveyed about his
expulsion from the primary membership of the party.
Earlier, according
to some other reports, Jaswant Singh, who arrived here last evening for the Chintan Baithak
of the party, kept away from the meeting by changing his hotel
citing bad health. He also skipped a dinner hosted by Leader of
Opposition L. K Advani.
BJP is
meeting here to discuss the causes for the party's defeat in 2009
general elections and its strategy for the future.
The
meeting is also likely to take up the issue of former Rajasthan
Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, who has refused to quit as Leader of
Opposition in the State Assembly.
Over 25
senior party leaders, including members of the party's parliamentary
board and chief ministers Narendra Modi of Gujarat, Raman Singh of
Chhattisgarh, Ramesh Pokhriyal of Uttarakhand and B.S. Yeddyurappa
of Karnataka, would be participating the three-day meeting.
|
'
Comment on this article