BJP executive shows Jain the door

BJP executive shows Jain the door
SHARAD GUPTA

NEW DELHI, JANUARY 4: The Jain vs Mishra war took a new turn today when former BJP Rajya Sabha member J K Jain was expelled from the party's national executive last night for serving a legal notice to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, seeking an apology for being branded an ISI agent.

Jain, however, has threatened BJP chief Bangaru Laxman with another legal notice for having committed ``contempt of the judicial process,'' unless the expulsion order was withdrawn. ``I request you to write a simple letter without mentioning the cause and to withdraw this letter, so that I am not compelled to initiate any contempt proceedings,'' Jain wrote to Bangaru.

The decision of Jain's expulsion from the national executive, was taken by Bangaru last evening on the prompting of Jain's one-time mentor Home Minister L K Advani, party sources said. Advani was forced to distance himself from Jain, sources said, because like Kalyan Singh, another Advani-loyalist, Jain too took on Vajpayee.

Earlier, Jain had served legal notices under section 80 of C.P.C.to Vajpayee,his principal secretary Brajesh Mishra, Cabinet Secretary, Home Secretary and directors of Intelligence Bureau and Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).He had also sought dismissal of Mishra and Director, RAW for ``tarnishing his reputation.''

The notice has already been received by offices of the Prime Minister, Mishra as well as of DIB on December 30, January 1 and December 29 respectively, as per the acknowledgements received by Jain's lawyer, Aman Lekhi.

Jain TV, owned by Dr Jain, is scheduled to telecast the first episode of the series of exposes against Mishra -- which it was promising for the past 25 days -- on the concluding day of BJP's national executive on Friday. Besides, it has also launched another TV campaign titled, `We want national security and not a surrender before terrorism,' against Vajpayee's peace initiative in Kashmir.

Jain was expected to call off his campaign after being granted two major favours by the Government, a TV news agency and uplinking facility to his channel, last month. He instead, stepped it up not only against Mishra but against Vajpayee as well, due to covert support of a section of RSS and BJP leaders, claimed a BJP Minister.

The Jain TV campaign on Kashmir, contains clippings of Vajpayee's speech at BJP's National Security Rally on May 2, 1990 at New Delhi. ``We will have to reply to guns with guns and bullets with bullets only, till Kashmir youth continues to hold guns. The reply will be given by our police and if need be by the Army as well,'' Vajpayee is shown as saying -- a contrast to his recent peace initiative. The clipping says Srinagar's Lal Chowk was burning then while even Delhi's Red Fort in not safe now.

Jain TV also claims that it will telecast other episodes of ``Mishra's exposes.'' The Prime Minister too has been made a party in Jain's legal case, because RAW works directly under him and only the PM could dismiss RAW chief as well as Mishra, said P N Lekhi, Jain's co-counsel.

The notice also refers to a similar RAW report used by the then Railway Minister Abdul Ghani Khan Chaudhury, to get his younger brother Abu Nasser Khan Chaudhury, because of a property dispute in 1987-88. Nasser's case was contested and won by Lekhi himself who feels that Jain's is a similar case.

It also refers to Jain's much publicised visit to Central Hall of Parliament with ``Am I an ISI agent'' painted on his shirt following by his meeting with Prime Minister and Home Minister for over two hours. ``The Ministers could not justify the false and scandalous label of an ISI agent stuck by RAW on our client'', the notice says.