Bhopal: Former BJP leader Yashwant Sinha here on Friday claimed the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was set to dismiss Narendra Modi, Gujarat Chief Minister at the time, after the 2002 post-Godhra riots, but withheld the decision as Home Minister LK Advani had threatened to resign from the Cabinet on the issue. Talking to media persons here on Friday, the former Union finance minister also dismissed as a non-issue the controversy over the alleged misuse of INS Viraat by former Prime Minister late Rajiv Gandhi. “After the communal riots in Gujarat, Atal Bihari Vajpayee had decided that then state chief minister Narendra Modi should resign.
“While going to the national executive committee meeting in Goa in 2002, Atal ji had made up his mind that the Gujarat government would be dismissed if Modi ji refused to resign,” he claimed, adding that there was a meeting within the party.
“According to my information, Advani ji had opposed this (dismissing the Modi government) and he told Atal ji that if Modi ji is dismissed then he (Advani) would resign from the government. So, he (Vajpayee) withheld the decision and Modi ji continued,” Sinha said.
To a query on Modi’s allegation that Rajiv Gandhi used INS Viraat as a “personal taxi”, Sinha said these are non-issues and that former naval officers had already issued clarifications on it.
“It is not as per the dignity of a prime minister to speak lies like this,” Sinha said, adding the Lok Sabha polls were being fought on the Modi government’s performance and not on the country’s history.