In a move that shifted focus from the Chintan Baithak called to discuss accounatbility for the election defeat and the ongoing tussle for power, the BJP on Wednesday expelled senior leader Jaswant Singh for his praise of Pakistan founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah in a book which the party claims sullies the image of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.

The BJP top brass, after skipping the release in Delhi of Singh’s book Jinnah — India, Partition, Independence, gathered in Shimla for a three-day brainstorming session but their first act this morning was to expel the former Union Minister who had held key portfolios in the Vajpayee government.

Jaswant Singh was made to wait in his room at the Oberoi Cecil, not far from the Baithak venue at the Peterhoff hotel. He was asked by BJP president Rajnath Singh not to attend the Baithak and later informed over telephone about his expulsion by the party parliamentary board.

“Kya karein, naseeb mein jab yahi likha tha (What can I do if this was destined)... I got a call from Rajnath Singh who informed me about the decision, but that’s hardly the way to treat someone who was once described as Hanuman to Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Have I suddenly become Ravan in today’s BJP?” Jaswant Singh told The Indian Express.

“Thirty years of my political life with the BJP and (being expelled) on this note... saddened me and on the ground for writing a book, that saddened me even more, immensely more... The day India starts questioning thought, it starts questioning reading, writing, publishing, we are entering a very very dark alley,” he said.

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