Have Vajpayee’s blessings,says Jaswant

At the press conference in Shimla,Singh had described himself as “Vajpayee’s Hanuman”,and wondered “how he could have turned into Ravan for the present-day BJP”.

Sources close to Vajpayee,however,made light of reports suggesting that the ailing leader was deeply anguished by the events.

“Anyone can go and meet Vajpayeeji,” Lucknow MP Lalji Tandon,considered to be a confidant of the former PM,said when asked about Singh’s meeting with Vajpayee today.

Singh kept up his attack on the BJP today,saying Sudheendra Kulkarni,former aide to L K Advani who defended him on the Patel-Jinnah controversy in an article published in The Indian Express on Saturday,“had been persuaded to quit” (by the party brass).

Kulkarni,however,contested this. “Jaswantji’s claim is not true at all. I had decided to quit several weeks ago,” he told The Express.

In a television interview,Jaswant described the BJP as “narrow-minded”. “I didn’t think the party is so narrow-minded… so nervous about Jinnah and Patel,to get so riled at what I have written,” he told CNN-IBN.