Sushma meets Jaswant

In this March 11, 2005 photo Jaswant Singh and Sushma Swaraj address the press at the Parliament House. Photo: Rajeev Bhatt

Senior BJP leader Sushma Swaraj on Monday met expelled party veteran Jaswant Singh and is understood to have demanded that he step down from the post of chairperson of the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee.

Mr. Jaswant Singh, being the senior-most of the three BJP MPs nominated to the PAC from the party, was appointed the chairperson of the committee. The other two BJP members are Yaswant Sinha and Gopinath Munde.

Party sources said Ms. Swaraj, who was accompanied by S.S. Ahluwalia, discussed the issue of PAC chairmanship at the meeting, the first between any top-rung BJP leader and Mr. Singh after his expulsion.

Mr. Singh was expelled from the party on August 19 during the BJP Chintan Baithak in Shimla for his remarks in his book

Jinnah — India, Partition, Independence.

As per the convention, the chairpersonship of the PAC was given to BJP as it is the main opposition party.

However, as per Parliamentary rules, the PAC chairperson can continue till he himself resigns or is found unable or unfit to discharge his duties effectively by the Lok Sabha Speaker.

Speaker Meira Kumar has indicated that Mr. Singh cannot be removed from the post simply because he has been expelled from the BJP.