Ex-union minister Jaswant Singh passed away on Sunday at 6:55 AM after a cardiac arrest at Delhi’s Army Hospital (Research & Referral) where he was admitted in June. A close aide of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Jaswant Singh had served as India’s foreign minister, defence minister and finance minister in the former NDA government. Shortly after his death, several antagonists started using the parliamentarian’s death to target the Narendra Modi government. One such was the speech writer for former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee- Sudheendra Kulkarni.
In an article for the Indian Express, Kulkarni targeted the present BJP government by claiming that had Jaswant Singh recovered from the coma he would have “found the party he served for 4 decades, unrecognisable”, insinuating that under PM Modi, BJP has become depraved and corrupt. In his article, Kulkarni wrote that under Vajpayee’s leadership the party even respected people like Jaswant Singh, who frequently voiced his dissenting views in party forums, a virtue which is unthinkable in the new BJP under Modi and Shah.
Soon, senior journalist Kanchan Gupta, who was also an official in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) when the NDA came to power, took to Twitter to call out the double standards of his colleague. Kanchan Gupta reminded how Sudheerna Kulkarni who has in his article heaped praises for Jaswant Singh, was the same person who had once spared no effort to humiliate the parliamentarian.
https://twitter.com/KanchanGupta/status/1310440906240081920?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwKanchan Gupta recalled that in 2009 when the BJP leaders had gathered to finalise the election manifesto, Kulkarni abused Singh and called him a ‘fool who cannot count’. This left Singh humiliated and teary eyed. Eventually, the BJP lost the 2009 elections.
Sudheendra Kulkarni and his dubiouness
Sudheendra Kulkarni, who had extended support to Rahul Gandhi ahead of 2019 elections has been a very vocal Modi critic and Pakistan sympathiser. Recently, during the Ladakh standoff with China, Kulkarni had downplayed Chinese aggression and referred to the call to boycott Chinese products as ‘stupid’. In 2015 he was attacked by Shiv Sena activists for organising Ex-Pak minister’s book launch. Prior to that, in an article in 2013 Kulkarni had dubbed Modi, the then Gujarat chief minister as an “autocrat” who cares “two hoots” for the party. He had also called BJP’s then-president Rajnath Singh “foxy”. Kulkarni had also opposed the name of Narendra Modi as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate.