Divided BJP waits for Natwar146;s RS 145;bombshell146;

The BJP is divided over Natwar Singh. While a section is indulging the former foreign minister to eventually use him for turning the heat on the Congress and Sonia Gandhi, the other insisting that both be treated at par.

The BJP is divided over Natwar Singh. While a section is indulging the former foreign minister to eventually use him for turning the heat on the Congress and Sonia Gandhi, the other insisting that both be treated at par.

Senior BJP leaders Yashwant Sinha and Shatrughan Sinha spent a greater part of the day in the company of Natwar Singh. On the other hand, general secretary Arun Jaitley stressed at a meeting of key leaders at the residence of former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee that the evidence available against the former Congress minister was quite clinching. The BJP, he felt, would err by backing him after having forced his resignation from the ministry a few months ago.

The meeting was attended by L K Advani, Jaswant Singh, party president Rajnath Singh, Murli Manohar Joshi, Yashwant Sinha and Vijay Kumar Malhotra.

A senior BJP leader told The Indian Express: 8216;8216;Hold on, there will be a bombshell in the course of Natwar Singh8217;s speech in the Upper House, hopefully tomorrow.8217;8217; Asked to spell it out, he said, 8216;8216;It is a matter of common sense, if Natwar Singh recommended somebody to the Iraqi Oil Minister, somebody must have recommended him to the Iraqi authorities too.8217;8217; 8216;8216;Pathak might not have been interested in finding the trail of the coupon issued in the Congress8217; name, but Natwar may be able to recount the track of this document.8217;8217; Besides, he said, 8216;8216;Natwar was surely not the only one who met the Iraqi minister 8211; there might have been some others too.8217;8217;

Notwithstanding Jaitley8217;s advice, the BJP is by and large waiting for Natwar8217;s speech in the Rajya Sabha to see red faces in the Congress. Asked if the BJP was supporting the beleagured Natwar, party chief Rajnath Singh said, 8216;8216;No, it is not so.8217;8217;

Malhotra, when asked if he considered Natwar innocent, said, 8216;8216;No, we don8217;t consider him innocent. However, we do believe he is a small fish 8211; the actual player is the Congress.8217;8217; He said: 8216;8216;Now that he plans to come out with a statement on the floor of the House, we are waiting to see if he exposes the role of the Congress in the oil-for-food scandal.8217;8217;

The issue figured at the Tuesday8217;s BJP parliamentary party meeting too. Rajya Sabha member Pyarelal Khandelwal, who raised the matter, asked: 8216;8216;Isn8217;t it that by condoning Natwar8217;s involvement in the scandal, we may end up bailing out Sonia and the Congress?8217;8217; Advani told the meeting that there it was not correct to say that the BJP condoned what Natwar had done.

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Jaitley said the party could not defend Natwar. Going by the evidence, he cannot not be saved, Jaitley added. Ravi Shankar Prasad also wondered how could Natwar Singh be defended when the party had forced his ouster from the Cabinet.

Notwithstanding their differences over the party stance towards Natwar Singh, everyone in the BJP is waiting for him to come out with his side of the story. If he manages to pull off any political scoop, the BJP would obviously focus on a larger target.