Jaswant Singh takes on BJP, says won't quit the party

Barmer, March 25: Stepping up his attack on Narendra Modi, BJP rebel Jaswant Singh today said "personality cult" was not good in a democracy and it would harm the party.

"The way the party is focusing on one person is not correct. This cannot work in a democracy," he said a day after he filed his nomination as an Independent from Barmer Lok Sabha constituency.

The 76-year-old BJP veteran was asked what he thought of the campaign in the current Lok Sabha elections by his party which used to seek votes in the name of the organisation but was now doing it in the name of Modi. Singh accused party president Rajnath Singh of "deliberately" sidelining him and said it was for BJP to expel him if it wants.

"Rajnath Singh has sidelined me probably under some plan. I have been betrayed and insulted. I am very much disappointed but I have not quit the party and I am not willing to do that.

"This is the second time I have been betrayed by the party and this is not tolerable. I am left in the lurch, but I have faith in God," Singh told PTI.

"I have not quit the party and will not. It is for the party to decide," he said, hinting that they were free to expel him. The veteran leader said that nobody from the party, either from Delhi or Jaipur, contacted him after he filed nomination papers yesterday. Singh decided to contest the Lok Sabha elections as an Independent after the BJP fielded former Congress MLA Sonaram Chowdhry, who joined BJP last week, from the Barmer seat.

PTI