Six months after rehabilitation in the Bharatiya Janata Party, Jaswant Singh, the 72-year-old former foreign and finance minister, has got an employment in the party, though without a post.

BJP president Nitin Gadkari has entrusted him with the task of "maintaining continuous contact and relation building with all political parties," says a party press release.

"It is a new post of interlocutor carved out by the president knowing well Jaswantji's PR (public relation) background and good equations with parties of all hues," said a party leader in the BJP headquarters.

The veteran leader and one of the BJP's founders, Jaswant Singh was sacked summarily 16 months ago without even a show-cause notice for writing a book in praise of Pakistan's founder Mohd Ali Jinnah.

He was part of the party's most powerful decision-making body of Central Parliamentary Board until expulsion. But what to say of restoring him this position, he still does not find a place in the party's jumbo national executive, not even as a special invitee. Those preparing for the BJP executive meeting in Guwahati this weekend wonder in what capacity he should be invited since after getting the new job.

Jaswant Singh was chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that is in news these days because of the 2G probe. He resisted the BJP's pressure for four months to step down since after his expulsion from the party until he finally gave in. His stepping down after persuasion by BJP veteran Lal Krishna Advani led to speculation of his return to the party but it took another six months before Gadkari welcomed him back to the party on June 24.

A member of parliament from Darjeeling now, Jaswant Singh was elected to the Rajya Sabha five times and to the Lok Sabha four times and was also leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha. He was in pains that the BJP leaders expelled him even without reading his Jinnah book, but he took it in his stride on June 24 when he said "biti baat bit jaati hai (past is past and forgotten)."