New Delhi: A combative Jaswant Singh on Tuesday said he would not quit as Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, a day after the expelled Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader was told by his former party to quit the parliamentary post.
Asked by reporters if he would oblige the BJP by quitting the PAC, Jaswant Singh said he would not.
"The decision (to ask him to quit the PAC) is of the (Lok Sabha) Speaker, and not of a political party," he said.
The PAC scrutinises government spending. The Darjeeling MP had been reportedly asked by the BJP on Monday to quit the post since he had been expelled from the party.
He also said he would not rejoin the BJP or any other party like the Samajwadi Party, which has been sending him feelers ever since his ouster from the BJP in August.
"I have no intention to join that party (BJP). I have got its door closed for me," Singh said when reporters asked him if he would consider rejoining the BJP, with which he was associated for 30 years.
Asked by IANS whether he would consider joining the Samajwadi Party, he said he will not join any other party too.
He was speaking to reporters in the Supreme Court premises where he had come for the hearing on his lawsuit challenging the Gujarat government's decision to ban his controversial book Jinnah: India - Partition - Independence, in which he has praised Pakistan founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah.
The SC on Tuesday issued notice to the Gujarat government seeking its response to a lawsuit by Jaswant Singh challenging the ban on his book n the state.
A bench of Justice Altmas Kabir and Justice Cyriac Joseph while issuing the notice to the Gujarat government decided to hear Singh's lawsuit September 8.
The BJP expelled him over the book.
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