Jaswant Singh came out combative and unbending a day after he was sacked from the BJP,trashing his former partys argument that he had violated its core ideology by criticising Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel,reminding it that it was Patel who first banned the RSS in the aftermath of the Mahatmas assassination. Back in New Delhi from Shimla where the BJP is at its chintan baithak,Singh announced he would meet ailing patriarch Atal Bihari Vajpayee,and promised to make public the note he had circulated to senior party leaders in June,demanding that responsibility be fixed for the Lok Sabha election defeat. I dont know which part of the core belief has been demolished. Patel,what is so core about him? Patel was the first one to ban the RSS and imprison RSS workers (in February 1948). But he did not ban the Muslim League, Singh said. Senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley had said in Shimla earlier in the day that to denigrate Sardar Patel goes against the national consensus and the partys core beliefs. Singh said he continued to believe it was Mohammad Ali Jinnahs intractability and constant change of positions that led to Partition. But,certainly Congress leaders were responsible as were the British, he said. He argued the BJPs 2005 statement on Jinnah after the L K Advani episode was not a resolution merely a statement by leaders. BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar,however,insisted the BJP had passed a resolution on the partys ideological stand on Jinnah and his role in Partition and that Singh had been part of the group that passed it. Singh also hinted that the contents of his book were not the sole reason for his expulsion when,in reply to a question,he said that some people in the BJP were perhaps not comfortable with him around. He said he was sure he would remain in public life despite yesterdays incidents he would not,however,join any other party. Singh said he nursed no grudge against L K Advani for not standing by him even though he had backed Advani during the Jinnah episode because he believed Advani had said nothing that was not correct. He quoted from one of his earlier books,A Call to Honour: In Service of Emergent India,to summarise how he was feeling about Advani: In that book I had written a quote that my grandfather had told me. Never remember a favour you have done. Never forget a favour somebody has done to you. Singh said the banning of his book in Gujarat by the Narendra Modi government amounted to shutting doors to thought,but he did not plan to challenge it in court. It was up to his publishers to take that call,he said. Singh repeated that it had been widely known in both the RSS and BJP that he was writing a book on Jinnah,and that his expulsion remained incomprehensible to him. The BJP,he said,had wanted him to delay the release of the book twice during last years Assembly elections,and during the Lok Sabha polls. If they had indeed read his book before they decided to act against him,all I can is that it was very fast reading.
