The Hindu : Front Page : Yashwant Sinha resigns from party positions

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Yashwant Sinha resigns from party positions

Neena Vyas

‘Let all office-bearers go and posts be filled through election’

NEW DELHI: Bharatiya Janata Party MP and former External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha has resigned from all party positions. He has suggested that “all office-bearers of the party and the parliamentary party resign” and the posts be filled “through a process of election.”

“Accountability, a casualty”

Mr. Sinha said it was “eminently appropriate” that L.K. Advani did not want to continue as Leader of the Opposition after the Lok Sabha election results were known, but “he was persuaded to continue.” The BJP leader alleged, in his resignation letter, that “some people were determined to ensure that the principle of accountability does not prevail so that their own little perch is not disturbed.”

Mr. Sinha, now in his Hazaribagh constituency, on Friday sent the five-page letter to party president Rajnath Singh and copies to members of the BJP’s core committee. The letter leaked to the media on Saturday afternoon minutes before Mr. Singh was to address the press.

Rajnath’s warning

While Mr. Singh has accepted Mr. Sinha’s resignation from the posts of party vice-president and member of the national executive committee, he will continue to serve the BJP as an ordinary worker and as MP.

Even as this political drama was unfolding — as a sequel to the June 10 core committee meeting where Jaswant Singh’s internal party note was “leaked,” and Arun Shourie’s outburst at the June 9 parliamentary party meeting — Mr. Rajnath Singh issued a stern warning that “henceforth” no indiscipline would be tolerated, saying party leaders and others were not expected to discuss internal deliberations with the press or in public.

Mr. Rajnath Singh dismissed the allegations by senior leaders, including Mr. Sinha, that the BJP was running away from analysing the reasons for the party’s poor showing in the election.

He said: “Recent statements … by some of our leaders on various media platforms appear to have created the impression in some quarters that the leadership is in disarray and is not analysing the reasons behind the defeat. This is far from the truth. The BJP stands united and is already in the process of analysing the outcome of the results … This obviously has to be an exhaustive and collective exercise and it has already begun at various levels. The entire process will culminate in a detailed ‘chintan baithak’ [brainstorming session] after the conclusion of the budget session of Parliament.”

Earlier, he said a committee had been set up to go into the reasons for the party’s defeat.

Mr. Rajnath Singh warned that he would not compromise with indiscipline. “In future all party leaders and cadre will not speak, formally or informally, on any forum outside the party on any matter that may affect the party’s image.” This was necessary “because of certain events that have happened,” he said.

A party functionary who did not want to be named said: “The race is for projection as Prime Minister in 2014 or whenever the next Lok Sabha election is held. The problem is that there are many contenders trying to replace Mr. Advani. Those asking for accountability forget that when they lost elections in the past, and came to Parliament through the Rajya Sabha, they were accommodated as Ministers in the Vajpayee government.”

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