Advertisement

Help
You are here: Rediff Home » India » News » PTI
Search:  Rediff.com The Web
Advertisement
  Discuss this Article   |      Email this Article   |      Print this Article

No regret over Jinnah issue: Advani
Get news updates:What's this?
Advertisement
March 14, 2008 23:28 IST

The Jinnah episode cost him his job and drew the ire of Sangh Parivar and several of his partymen, but senior BJP leader L K Advani has no regrets over his comments that created the furore.

My Life, My Country --  Advani's much-awaited autobiography -- which is soon going to hit the stands touches upon on his Jinnah trouble, the Babri Masjid demolition, his relationship with senior colleague A B Vajpayee and several other topics.

Recollecting his visit to Pakistan in 2006, during which he landed in a soup after his comments that Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the Father of Pakistan, was secular, Advani is understood to have written that he has no regret over the issue.

The 80-year-old BJP veteran also talks about Somnath-Ayodhya Rath Yatra and Babri Masjid demolition in 1992.

About the demolition, he recounted that there was a sense of jubilation among the people.

From a fringe player in Indian politics, BJP shot to prominence after the Rath Yatra led by him, which catapulted it to the centrestage of national politics.

His relationship with BJP patriarch Vajpayee has always hit the headlines and Advani talks extensively about that in his book to be released later this month.

Advani says he always considered Vajpayee as his leader and whenever there was difference of view between the two, he would go by the latter's opinion.

The Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, who has of late been attacking Prime Minister Manmohan Singh [Images] severely, does not spare him in the book as well.

He charges Singh with making the Prime Minister's residential address 10-Janpath, the residence of Congress president Sonia Gandhi [Images].

Having decided to replicate the Gujarat model in other states and Centre, he has written Narendra Modi's victory is an example that elections can be won on development plank also.


© Copyright 2008 PTI. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of PTI content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent.
 Email this Article      Print this Article

© 2008 Rediff.com India Limited. All Rights Reserved. Disclaimer | Feedback