The veteran BJP leader Jaswant Singh expelled from the Party a fortnight back is an angry man, frustrated and desperate.

Till the other day he was a trusted lieutenant of Mr. Lal Krishna Advani. He had continued to be the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha only because he had Mr. Advani's hand of patronage.

Mr. Jaswant Singh could not afford to contest a Lok Sabha seat in his home State of Rajasthan. In the assembly segments that constituted his son Manvendra Singh's parliamentary constituency BJP had drawn a blank.  Mr. Manvendra Singh lost his Lok Sabha seat. There were reports in the Press that the father-son duo had worked against the party in the assembly elections. In return, Mr. Jaswant had held former chief minister Mrs. Vasundhara Raje responsible for his son's defeat.

It was, according to reports, Mr. Advani who persuaded Mr. Jaswant Singh to contest the Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat. Gorkha Janmukti Morcha had promised to support BJP here. Any BJP nominee would have won the seat in the prevailing circumstances.  

The Lok Sabha results turned turtle all the plans   Mr. Advani continued to be Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha. Now that Mr. Jaswant Singh was a Lok Sabha member, he had to quit his Rajya Sabha seat thereby losing the position of Leader of Opposition in that house with the status of a Cabinet minister with all the perks and position. He was also occupying, as per reports, two bungalows and a third one in the name of his Lok Sabha MP son who had lost election. Therefore, the family holding got squeezed to just one bungalow.

Had he not contested the Lok Sabha election, in the situation that developed post-Lok Sabha results, there would certainly have been no threat to his continuance as Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha. But now his position stood reduced to just one of the senior MPs of the Party in Lok Sabha. Nomination of Mrs. Sushma Swaraj as Deputy Leader of the Party, who incidentally was Mr. Jaswant Singh's deputy in Rajya Sabha, further fuelled his frustration. Further there were reports that she would succeed Mr. Advani whenever he wished to relinquish his post.

It was, perhaps, this dawn of reality that prompted him to shoot the famous parinaam and puruskar letter to the Party President Mr. Rajnath Singh in which he growled that Party was prizing those responsible for party's defeat ignoring those who returned good results.

Last update : 06-09-2009 02:55

Keywords : Jaswant Exposes Himself, Amba Charan Vashishtha

Average user rating

   (0 vote)