New Delhi: It has been a terrible week for the BJP. And on Sunday it didn't get any better. In a clear signal, former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee distanced himself from his party's stand on Jaswant Singh, and met him.
The BJP leadership had expelled Singh without even issuing a show cause notice last Wednesday for apparently contradicting the party's view of Jinnah and Sardar Patel.
So when Jaswant Singh drove in to Vajpayee's residence to meet the former PM, it begs the question that whether the BJP's tallest leader disapproves of Jaswant's expulsion.
In an interview to Shekhar Gupta on NDTV, Jaswant Singh revealed how he had stopped Vajpayee from resigning as prime minister after the Gujarat riots.
Althought Vajpayee is no longer active in politics, he is widely respected and often invoked by the BJP leadership.
Vajpayee meeting Jaswant Singh clearly sends a strong message to the BJP leadership. A message that may possibly have greater repercussions than Advani and Rajnath Singh would like.
While the BJP remains in turmoil, there has been a meeting between party president, Rajnath Singh and the RSS leaders, apparently to brief RSS leaders on the events of the 3-day Chintan Baithak in Shimla.
Meanwhile, it's one crisis after another in the BJP, Sudheendra Kulkarni, who was a close aide of former Vajpayee, and later of L K Advani, has now decided to end his active association with the party.
Kulkarni had stepped down as an office-bearer in 2005 after Advani's Jinnah controversy. After the election defeat in 2009, Kulkarni had written that the "BJP and Sangh Parivar made a strong leader like Advani look weak, helpless and not fully in command".