The Gujarat government, which banned Jaswant Singh's controversial book on Jinnah alleging it was an attempt to tarnish the image of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, has in its notification described it as "highly objectionable and against national interest".
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Arun Jaitley on Thursday denied existence or the tabling of any internal report prepared by Bal Apte at the three-day Chintan Baithak (brainstorming session) on reasons for the party's debacle in this year's general election. He also justified the expulsion of Jaswant Singh from the party.
The Gujarat government slammed Jaswant's book titled Jinnah: India-Partition, Independence, accusing him of denigrating the image of Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel, who was a Gujarati and held in high esteem by people across Gujarat and rest of the India for his role during India's freedom struggle against the British rulers.
The Congress on Wednesday suggested that Jaswant Singh has been handed out poetic justice by the Bharatiya Janata Party, which expelled him today in the wake of his controversial book, projecting Mohammad Ali Jinnah as greater than Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. "We had rejected the contents of the book. The BJP has rejected the author himself," All India Congress Committee general secretary Janardhan Dwivedi said.
Jaswant Singh's biography of M A Jinnah has cost him his place in the BJP. Syed Firdaus Ashraf looks at Jinnah and his controversial place in India's history.
What several eminent intellectuals said at the launch of Jaswant controversial book, Jinnah India, Partition, Independence.
The Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh disapproved of senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Jaswant Singh's praise of Pakistan's founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah
Senior leader and spokesman of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangha Ram Madhav's statement that the wall between India and Pakistan would come down like the Wall of Berlin has created ripples, particularly in the RSS circles.
Former Bharatiya Janata Party leader Jaswant Singh, who was last year expelled from his party for praising Mohammad Ali Jinnah in his book, said it was wrong to demonise Pakistan's founder.
The depth of water from the surface till the bottom of the pit is expected to be over 150 feet, Navy officials said.
Bhartiya Janata Party president Rajnath Singh said that the party should jointlytake responsibility for victory or defeat. "If any individual must own up the defeat in the Lok Sabha polls, I as the president of the party I accept the responsibility," he said while making opening remarks at two day meeting of the national executive at Parliamentary Annexe in New Delhi on Saturday.
Jaswant Singh, who was suspended by the Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday for going ahead with his decision to contest the election from Barmer constituency as an independent candidate, has claimed that he had never supported either the Ram Janambhoomi movement or the Rath Yatra led by Lal Krishna Advani.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leaders are not on talking terms with expelled leader Jaswant Singh after he refused to resign from the chairmanship of the Public Accounts Committee of the Parliament, Union minister Murli Deora claimed on Friday. The Petroleum and Natural Gas minister, who is heading a high-level delegation to London, said senior BJP leaders, including L K Advani, Sushma Swaraj and Murali Manohar Joshi, are not on talking terms with their former colleague.
Representatives of BJP, Shiv Sena and Swatantra Bharat Paksh kept away in protest against Singh's continuance as its chairman despite being asked to step down. "We stayed away as it was National Democratic Alliance's directive," said Shiv Sena representative in PAC, Anandrao Adsul.
The publishers of expelled BJP leader Jaswant Singh''s controversial book "Jinnah: India, Partition -- Independence" have released about 5,000 copies in Gujarat, on Saturday.
Call it a setback to Narendra Modi. The Gujarat High Court on Friday set aside the Gujarat government's order to ban Jaswant Singh's book on M A Jinnah.
After its notification banning Jaswant Singh's book on Jinnah faced flak for not giving detailed reasons, the Gujarat government today told the High Court it proposes to come out with a fresh communication superseding the old one which is under legal challenge.
we need to remember one thing. Kandahar is not about Advani. Neither can it viewed through the partisan politics of the BJP and the Congress. It was and must remain one with India's battle with terror.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sushma Swaraj on Monday met expelled party veteran Jaswant Singh and is understood to have demanded that he step down from the post of chairperson of the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee.
Bharatiya Janata Party Member of Parliament Maneka Gandhi created a stir on Saturday when she first came out openly in support of expelled party leader Jaswant Singh, but hastily backtracked from her stance later.Maneka, who was visiting Budaun in Uttar Pradesh, to oversee the party's preparedness ahead of the by-election to two state assembly segments which fall under her Aonla Lok Sabha constituency, told reporters that the BJP had been unfair to Jaswant.
A famous book store in Lahore sold 100 copies of the book in a single day (last Wednesday) which indicates how eager the Pakistanis are to know the reason what prompted the BJP to expel the former foreign minister and end his 30 year long association with the party.
Expelled Bharatiya Janata Party leader Jaswant Singh has invoked the battle scene from Hindu epic Mahabharata to defend his "covering up" for Leader of Opposition L K Advani during the election campaign, when he had said that the former home minister did not know that he was going with three terrorists in a plane to Kandahar.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has said attempts were being made to vilify Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in the wake of Jaswant Singh's book on Mohammad Ali Jinnah and said it was a malicious campaign to distort history for narrow partisan interests.
Expelled Bharatiya Janata Party leader Jaswant Singh on Sunday met former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee at the latter's residence in New Delhi.Singh, who was a Cabinet minister under Vajpayee's government, drove to the ailing BJP patriarch's Krishna Menon marg residence today afternoon."I came here to wish Vajpayeeji on the occasion of Ganseh Chaturthi," Singh told reporters after the meeting.
Firing a fresh salvo at senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani, expelled BJP leader Jaswant Singh has claimed that the former home minister stopped former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee from taking action against Gujarat CM Narendra Modi over the 2002 riots on the ground that it could trigger uproar in the party.
In a startling revelation, expelled Bharatiya Janata Party leader Jaswant Singh said on Wednesday that he had sent an advance copy of his latest book "Jinnah -- India-Partition-Independence" to senior party leader and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha L K. Advani, and therefore, this made his removal from the party after 30 years of association even more painful and shocking.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's 'Chintan Baithak' or assessment-cum introspection exercise will begin in Shimla on Wednesday.
Apparently reflecting their discomfort, no BJP leader today showed up at a function in which Jaswant Singh's book on Jinnah was released and where his view that Nehru was responsible for the Partition was contested.
Brushing aside BJP's dictat to its leaders not to go public on goings-on in the party, its senior leader Arun Shourie has sought to reopen the old wounds about the Kandahar hijack episode involving L K Advani.
Initiating the debate on the Finance Bill in the Lok Sabha, BJP leader Jaswant Singh said the finance minister should not spend his time in 'accountancy' but 'apply his mind to the reality of economic management of the country." Terming the Finance Bill as the 'child' of the Union Budget, he said it (Finance Bill) should be abolished and if not, then the government should 'break it up'.
With raging dissent in Bharatiya Janata Party coming out in the open, a senior party Member of Parliament on Wednesday said that the points raised by veterans like Yashwant Sinha, Arun Shourie and Jaswant Singh should be given due importance.
Adding to the BJP's fears, former vice-president Bhairon Singh Shekhawat met senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh on Friday.
Ruling out the possibility of returning to the Bharatiya Janata Party or joining any other party, expelled leader Jaswant Singh on Monday said the ideology of the saffron outfit has "become narrow".
Pranab Mukherjee Gulam Nabi Azad and Ahmed Patel will liaise on behalf of Congress President Sonia Gandhi, while Gujarat Chief Miniser Narendra Modi, Jaswant Singh, S Gurumurthy and Cho Ramaswamy are the pointsmen for Bharatiya Janata Party prime ministerial candidate L K Advani.
Former foreign minister in the Atal Bihari government Jaswant Singh said that if voted to power the National Democratic Alliance would continue the process of holding dialogue with Pakistan on the Kashmir issue and simuatenously engage the All Party Hurriyat Conference as was done during Vajpayee's tenure as prime minister.
Expelled Bharatiya Janata Party leader Jaswant Singh on Saturday said he had sought removal of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi after the post-Godhra communal riots and even opposed L K Advani's 'Ram Rathyatra'.
Senior BJP leader and Rajya Sabha member Pyarelal Khandelwal died in New Delhi on Tuesday, following a cardiac arrest at AIIMS.
Jaswant Singh could stick out like a sore thumb for BJP even in the Lok Sabha after its attempt to remove him from the Chairmanship of the Public Accounts Committee has been virtually rejected by Speaker Meira Kumar.
Jaswant Singh's controversial book on Jinnah is selling like hot cakes in Gujarat after the state high court lifted the ban, imposed by the Narendra Modi government, on it. Bookstore managers said that the book 'Jinnah: India-Partition, Independence' has generated a lot of interest among readers and the demand for it is soaring by the day.Crossword, a chain of book stores, has sold over 100 copies of the book in the city since September 4, when the ban was lifted.
Expelled Bharatiya Janata Party leader Jaswant Singh on Tuesday put to rest speculations that he might rejoin the party saying "the roads are closed".
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