MP Congress demands ban on Jaswant's book

Bhopal: Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is cagey about banning expelled party leader Jaswant Singh's controversial book on Mohammed Ali Jinnah like party-ruled Gujarat has, but the Congress in Madhya Pradesh has demanded a ban on it.

State Congress spokesman KK Mishra, who made a statement Sunday evening, demanding that the book be banned, reiterated the stand on Monday while talking to a section of the media.

"The Congress will not tolerate any disrespect shown towards Gandhi-Nehru-Sardar Patel. The state government should ban the book with immediate effect," Mishra said.

The Congress in Gujarat has already backed the BJP government's ban on the book Jinnah: India, Partition, Independence.

The book praises Pakistan founder Jinnah while blaming India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and first home minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.

When a group of journalists Saturday asked Chouhan if his government would impose a ban on the book in Madhya Pradesh, he said: "I don't think so".

However, when asked if he meant that there would be no ban, he said: "I don't think so right now". On further questions, he said he did not want to comment on the issue.

He also addressed a function of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), the party's youth wing, at the state BJP headquarters where a portrait of Sardar Patel was installed on the dais for the first time at a party function.

Speaking there, he insisted that he had the highest respect for Sardar Patel.

Before commencement of the function, party workers paid tributes to Patel. Chouhan said: "I do not want to go into the contents of senior party leader Jaswant Singh's book. I also feel sad about his expulsion from the party, but whatever comments he made in his book regarding Patel were wrong."

Back from Shimla where he attended the BJP's introspection meeting (chintan baithak), Chouhan has also warned party workers and leaders that he doesn't want a Jaswant Singh-like episode in Madhya Pradesh.

"Indiscipline will not be tolerated in the organisation in the name of freedom of expression. The party's thought would be the worker's thought. Deviation from it cannot be allowed".