Jaswant Singh, the stalwart who was once Vajpayee’s right-hand man, passed away on the morning of September 27. He had served in the Vajpayee government between 1998 and 2004 and held portfolios of Defence, Finance and External Affairs. He has the distinction of being one of the longest serving parliamentarians from 1980 to 2014. He had been in coma since 2014, after suffering falling in his bathroom and getting his head injured. Several national leaders like Prime Minister Modi took to Twitter and expressed their condolences.
Here are some interesting information that you should about the former Union Minister:
1. He is known as one of the best negotiators in Indian politics
His skill as a negotiator and diplomat during talks with the United States has been well acknowledged by his U.S. counterpart Strobe Talbott. He is widely regarded for his handling of relations with the United States which were strained after the 1998 Indian nuclear tests which resulted in U.S. President Bill Clinton visit to India in 2000.
2. He was popularly addressed as Vajpayee’s Hanuman
Late Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee had had a cartoon framed in his office of himself and Shri Jaswant Singh wherein the later had been depicted as his Hanuman. As Singh himself put it at the time of his expulsion, “During Atalji’s time there was a cartoon that I keep framed. In that, I was pictured as Hanuman. But now I appear to have become Ravana.”
3. He was India’s External Affairs Minister when IC 814 was hijacked
While Home Minister LK Advani was against exchanging the hostages for release of the hijackers as he thought it would affect the public opinion of the government, Jaswant Singh advocated for negotiating with the Taliban for the release of the hostages. At that time, he had received a call from his home about the birth of his granddaughter Harshini Kumari Rathore. In an article to The Print, Harshini narrates how Jaswant Singh had to balance between the duty as a grandfather and as the Minister in the government.
This release of the prisoners became a setback to the BJP government. The present National Security Advisor Ajit Doval who was the Intelligence Bureau Chief at that time described the whole incident as a “diplomatic failure” for the inability to make the US and UAE use their influence and secure a quick release of the passengers.
4. A man of controversies
His 2006 book called “A Call to Honour” caused outrage as he had claimed about the presence of a mole in the PV Narasimha Rao cabinet who had leaked India’s nuclear test secrets to the US. Dr. Manmohan Singh hit back at Jaswant Singh and asked him to name the mole. Later Jaswant Singh changed his position saying that the claim was based on a ‘hunch’.
In his book ‘Jinnah: India-Partition-Independence’, he had heaped praises on Pakistan’s founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah while pinning Jawaharlal Nehru as the man responsible for partition.
5. Vice President candidate of NDA in 2012
He was nominated as the Vice President candidate for the NDA in 2012. Former Chief Minister late J. Jayalalithaa had extended her support to Singh’s candidature. However, he was defeated by Hamid Ansari.
6. Expelled from the party multiple times
Though he was one of the founding members of the party, Jaswant Singh has been expelled from the party multiple times. The first time he was expelled was following his book on Jinnah. He was reinstated into the party in 2010.
After he was denied a ticket in the 2014 general elections, he decided to contest as an independent candidate from Barmer. After he refused to withdraw, and was expelled from the BJP in March 2014.