Atal would have handled things well: Yashwant

NEW DELHI: Factional faultlines within BJP sharpened on Thursday with another former Union minister, Mr Yashwant Sinha, attacking the party leadership for the way Mr Jaswant Singh was shown the door.

Mr Sinha, a former BJP vice-president who was among the first to criticise Mr L K Advani���s reappraisal of Jinnah in June, 2005, contrasted the party���s handling of the Jaswant Singh episode with the organisational affairs in the Vajpayee era, and felt that the former prime minister, had he been active in politics, would have steered things in a different manner.

``Mr Jaswant Singh was dealt with unfairly. Though I do not agree with his assessment of Jinnah, still, I feel it was not a disciplinary matter at all,������ the former external affairs minister told a news agency on Thursday.
He maintained that it was not right for the party to take decisions so summarily against somebody who had been in the party for 30 years and had been a founder-member of the party.

Merely writing a book, Mr Sinha contended, did not constitute indiscipline. ``The party president had already distanced himself from the contents of Mr Jaswant Singh���s book. That should have been enough,������ he said. The entire ``expulsion process was faulty,������ he claimed, as even a show-cause notice was not issued to Mr Jaswant Singh.

Responding to a question, Mr Sinha felt that ``things would have been handled differently��� in the party if Mr Vajpayee had been in charge.

Even though Mr Sinha���s remarks are not exactly surprising, given the fact that he, along with Mr Jaswant Singh and Mr Arun Shourie, had, questioned the party���s refusal to conduct a post-mortem into the party���s performance in the general election, and wanted accountability to be fixed, they are certain to add to the party���s woes. Mr Sinha had, resigned from the vice-president���s post, and wanted other office-bearers to follow suit so as to facilitate a complete organisational revamp.

In what appeared to a be a concerted assault on the BJP leadership, Mr Brajesh Mishra, former NSA and political aide to Mr Vajpayee, too found fault with the manner in which Mr Jaswant Singh had been summarily expelled from the party.

With the BJP coming under a renewed burst of fire, it faces the worst crisis in its 29-year-old life. It acted with alacrity in serving the marching orders on Mr Jaswant Singh for showering praise on Jinnah, while flaying Sardar Patel for his role in the country���s Partition, but has since then opted to go soft against other disgruntled elements.

With the BJP central leadership confronted with a severe credibility crisis, and cadre moral at nadir, all eyes will be on RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat for clues about the nature of its ties with the saffron party.

The RSS chief will be addressing a press conference here on Friday ���his first since taking over the reins of the organisation ��� and will be expected to spell out his thinking on the grim state of affairs that has come to prevail in BJP.

In an interview to Times Now, Mr Bhagwat had expressed the view that the BJP���s survival as a live and robust organisation was critically dependent on its ability to groom younger leaders at all levels.

``Its a universal rule that the younger generation must replace the older one. But when and where this should take place is for them to decide. Today, you say that the top-level of BJP is in the age-group of 75-85. But 30 years ago, the situation was different. The generation, after working for 35 years, has now become old. So they now have to think of promoting younger leaders. The modus-operandi ��� when, where, how ��� that is their decision. This transition is taking place everywhere. In the RSS too, we���ll have to think of promoting a new set after 10-15 years,������ he had said.

The average age of party���s leadership at all levels, he maintained, should be in the 55-60 age bracket.
The RSS chief has simultaneously expressed indignation over relentless infighting and growing indiscipline within BJP, and exhorted the party leadership to take immediate steps to `restore balance.���

While the BJP is looking towards RSS to bail it out from the mess that it finds itself into, there is also a realisation that the latter itself has ceased to be the moral force that it used to be in the past, and that it has been reduced to being a factional player.