India BJP seeks clarity on remark

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India's main opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has asked a leader to clarify critical remarks against the party.

Arun Shourie has asked for an overhaul of the party leadership and said the BJP was like "kite without a string".

His comments come days after the BJP expelled another leader, Jaswant Singh, for writing a controversial book on Pakistan's founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah.

Mr Shourie has said he would clarify his remarks to the leadership.

The party has been plagued by infighting and a crisis of leadership after it lost the 2009 general polls.

A BJP spokesman said the party had sought a clarification from Mr Shourie.

"This is not a show cause notice. Nor has he been sent a notice seeking explanation. Only a clarification [about the remarks] has been sought," Prakash Javadekar said.

Mr Shourie said he would give a clarification, and that he had not severed his ties with the party.

"If there is any ambiguity and the party president and others have asked for clarification, I will clarify," he said.

"I am in touch with [the party]. My ties with the party have not snapped," he added.

'Gross indiscipline'

The party's disciplinary committee chief, Ram Naik, told The Indian Express newspaper that Mr Shourie's statements were a "clear case of gross indiscipline but it was for the BJP parliamentary party to decide on the course of action to be taken against him".

Earlier this week, Mr Shourie, a former newspaper editor and federal minister in the BJP cabinet, launched an uncharacteristic attack on his party leadership.

"The BJP today is like a kite without string. Unless it's got hold of swiftly... I don't see people within the party who now have such authority," he told the NDTV channel.

Mr Shourie described the BJP chief Rajnath Singh as "Alice in Blunderland" and said the leadership needed to be changed.

He said that the party's ideological fountainhead, the right-wing Hindu organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), should intervene and help strengthen the BJP.

The BBC's Soutik Biswas in Delhi says Mr Shourie's outburst has thrown the BJP leadership in acute discomfort.

It has come under severe pressure in the past week after Jaswant Singh's expulsion and has been criticised as a party which has lost its way, and is intolerant of dissent, our correspondent says.

A party meeting called last week to review its progress was overshadowed by the expulsion of Jaswant Singh.

Mr Singh had praised Mr Jinnah in the book and said the latter has been "demonised in India".

Mr Jinnah is a controversial figure in India and considered the architect of the partition.

The BJP is still India's second largest party - it has 116 seats to Congress's 206 in the parliament.