Though there is a BJP government in Karnataka, Singh said: 'I am opposed to the government entering people's bedrooms. And if women want to relax and have a drink, whose business and right is it to object?'

The 71-year-old leader's book, taking a non-conventional view on Mohammed Ali Jinnah that completely contradicts the BJP's position, also comes from his moderate thinking.

In the book, 'Jinnah: India, Partition, Independence', he has praised Jinnah while in a television interview last week Singh said Jinnah was made the villain of Partition though Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Patel also had a role in it.

During the communal violence in Gujarat in 2002, in which members of a minority community bore the brunt, Singh was among the few BJP leaders who did not speak out publicly in support of Modi while several party seniors stoutly defended the state government.