New Delhi, Aug. 21: Jaswant Singh today almost called Lal Krishna Advani a liar for claiming no knowledge of the decision to fly to Kandahar with three terrorists and release them to win the freedom of passengers of the hijacked Indian Airlines flight.

Jaswant, who was then the external affairs minister, said in an interview with NDTV that Advani could not have been unaware of the Kandahar plan. “I announced it in the cabinet.”

Was Advani present? He replied: “Yes, how can they (terrorists) be released from prison without the home minister consenting and signing pieces of paper?”

Asked why he had said the opposite during the last Lok Sabha poll campaign, and whether he was covering up for his party colleague, Jaswant said: “I’m sorry, I did.”

Advani had said over a year ago that he wasn’t aware of the decision to send Jaswant with the three terrorists to gain the release of the hostages.

Expelled for his book on Jinnah, a decision Advani justified today, Jaswant said: “I don’t regret (keeping quiet)…. It was part of an election campaign. I was being very conservative with (the) truth.”

Advani, speaking in public for the first time since Jaswant’s ouster on Wednesday, said: “It is mentally painful to expel somebody who has been with you for the past 30 years but what he wrote was against the basic ideology of the party.”

Jaswant has painted Jinnah as a secular leader and blamed Nehru and Sardar Patel for Partition as much as Pakistan’s creator. BJP leaders have taken great offence at the criticism of Patel. But Jaswant questioned the party’s weakness for Patel, pointing out that he had banned the RSS.

Advani responded that “one month after the ban, Patel wrote a letter to Nehru, saying there is not an iota of evidence against the RSS. Jaswant is saying only half of what had happened and not the other half.”

He said Patel’s task of unifying more than 700 princely states was a super-human effort and a spectacular achievement.

Jaswant’s revelation on Kandahar, however, swings the spotlight towards the living from the dead and is fraught with danger for Advani as it confirms the general impression that the then home minister would have known about the Kandahar decision.

The expelled Darjeeling MP brought Atal Bihari Vajpayee into the picture as well. “You know what the comment (that Advani didn’t know) means. It’s a comment not on Jaswant Singh. It’s a comment on Atalji because there is a sense of collective responsibility of the cabinet.”

Jaswant said he had privately confronted Advani over his remarks. “I said, ‘Advaniji, what do I say to this?’ He said, ‘Say whatever you want to say’. Over.”