Sunday, June 12 2005 18:24 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Kolkata: Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee today (Jun 12, 2005) said that it was absurd to accept Mohammed Ali Jinnah as a secular leader as he had propagated the two-nation theory, which ultimately culminated in the creation of Pakistan.

''In the Congress party our assessment about Jinnah is clear. Jinnah had propagated the two-nation theory and it is a fact and part of history. Jinnah was primarily responsible for the Partition. It is absurd to accept him as a secular leader,'' Mukherjee told a meet-the-press programme in Kolkata.

In private life he might have been secular and in fact he was, but it had nothing to do with his public life, he said.

When asked to comment on Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president L K Advani's comment on Jinnah, Mukherjee said that one could try to interpret and re-interpret Jinnah's persona, whether he was a secular or communal, but that was the job of a historian and not of a political party or a political activist. Let academicians do that job.

''We cannot simply ignore that Jinnah was responsible for the creation of Pakistan, and also we cannot twist the events of history and interpret them in our own way,'' the senior Congress leader said.