Jaswant files petition in Supreme Court on Gujarat Govt's ban of his book

New Delhi, Aug.28 (ANI): Expelled Bharatiya Janata Party leader Jaswant Singh on Friday filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the Gujarat Government's decision to ban his latest book - Jinnah -India, Partition, Independence.

Deploring the ban of the book, Singh has already said that books are a medium of expression in the country, and professed the right to freedom of speech and expression.

He claimed that a ban on books actually means a ban on thinking.

"I am greatly saddened by it because the other example takes you to Salman Rusdie and Satanic Verses. The day we start banning books in India, we are banning thinking," Jaswant had said while returning back from Shimla after his expulsion from the BJP last week.

The Narendra Modi-led Gujarat Government had banned the sale of Singh"s book in the State last week.

The Gujarat Government blamed Jaswant"s book for denigrating the image of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who was a Gujarati and held in high esteem by people across Gujarat and rest of the India for his role during India"s freedom struggle against the British rulers.

Jaswant observes in his book that Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel together conceded Pakistan to Jinnah with help from the British.

Patel occupies a pride of place in BJP"s historiography with the party eulogising his tough action for the integration of rebellious Hyderabad and Junagarh with the Union, and contrasting it with the Nehru"s "blunder" in taking the Kashmir issue to the UN. (ANI)