SHIMLA, India: India’s opposition Hindu nationalists expelled one of the most senior figures in their party on Wednesday amid a row over his book praising Pakistan’s founding father Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Jaswant Singh, a former foreign minister and member of Parliament for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), had questioned the demonization of Jinnah, whom Hindu nationalists blame for the partition of the subcontinent in 1947.
“We decided that he will no more be a member of any party forum,” BJP President Rajnath Singh told reporters in the northern hill resort of Shimla, where the party was meeting for a brainstorming session. Singh’s book, “Jinnah — India, Partition, Independence,” was published on Monday. In it, he calls the Pakistani leader as a “great personality.”
