NEW DELHI, MAY 12: The BJP has been severely embarrassed by the latest Yashwant Sinha salvos against party’s prime ministerial candidate L K Advani on Kandahar, with party top guns saying these sent out “worrying signals to NDA allies”. “We are not worried about the Congress. What is disconcerting though is that our allies are not getting positive signals by this,” admitted a top BJP leader on Monday.

Yashwant, in an interview to a Hindi news channel, had said he would not have spoken about “what transpired in a Cabinet meeting or a Cabinet Committee on Security meeting”. While he didn’t refer to Advani by his name, his “I would have acted differently” spin once again put Advani’s statements under the scanner. Only a couple of days ago, Jaswant Singh had said Advani “could have forgotten about the CCS decision”, following which he travelled to Kandahar (to negotiate the release of 157 passengers on board the hijacked Indian Airlines plane).

“The Congress is welcome to nitpick on Advani’s book, but one should not forget that the Congress is instrumental in fanning and creating terror monsters in the country. We’ll pin them on this,” former party president M Venkaiah Naidu told The Indian Express.

Another top leader hoped that other party leaders would desist from speaking “out of turn” on Kandahar. Said party spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad: “We have no comments on it. It’s a closed chapter for the party.”

“Jaswant had undertaken the visit, so his comments are understandable. What’s not, however, is Yashwant’s ‘holier than thou’ position on the issue,” said a top BJP leader.

Yashwant was one of the first BJP leaders to have attacked Advani on his Jinnah remarks. On other issues, too, he has taken unconventional positions. A former Union external affairs minister during Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s landmark visit to China, he advocated for Tibet’s independence, albeit “in his personal capacity”. Similarly, he was one of the handful party leaders for whom an anti-nuclear deal position was an article of faith. “Coming as he does, from a non-RSS background, it’s been his way to warm up to the RSS,” said a BJP leader.

Yashwant’s comments may have brought Kandahar to the centrestage once again, but voices in the party have also been asking in hushed tones whether a prime ministerial candidate should put on record his “years in the government”, making the rival party’s task “a lot easier”.

However, in a recent chat with this reporter, Advani said he had started work on the book over a year ago. “I had decided to retire from active politics. It was at the insistence of two or three of my close friends that I reconsidered my decision,” he added.