Who authorised former External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh to go to Kandahar on December 31, 1999? NDA convenor George Fernandes, who was then defence minister, has refuted L K Advani’s claim of ignorance about the decision.

Fernandes says Singh went after a detailed discussion among senior ministers, affirming that Advani was also present. “Yes, all were present,” he told CNN-IBN’s Devil’s Advocate programme, asked if Advani was present at the meeting that decided to send Singh.

In an interview with The Indian Express Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta on NDTV 24X7’s Walk the Talk, Advani had claimed that he did not know till the last moment that Singh was on the plane carrying terrorists to Kandahar for the hostage swap.

Singh has not yet responded to Advani. His narrative of the sequence of events during the last week of 1999, in his book, A Call to Honour: In Service of Emergent India, released in 2006 is silent about who took the decision. In fact, he does not even mention Advani or then prime minister A B Vajpayee. Singh records in his book that the decision for him to go was “natural”, and the officials handling the crisis wanted some political authority to be present at the spot.

In his interview, Fernandes recounted in detail the decision taken by senior ministers of the Vajpayee Government in December 1999 to send Singh along with three terrorists. According to a release issued by the news channel, he stated that this decision was taken after a discussion among senior ministers. The terrorists were flown to Kandahar for their eventual release in exchange for the passengers of an Indian Airlines plane, which had been hijacked by members of their group. Fernandes maintained that the decision was not taken unilaterally by Singh, but was supported by the ministers at the meeting.

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