NEW DELHI (Online) - Walking in the footsteps of party senior LK Advani, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Jaswant Singh has called Pakistans founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah 'a great Indian, saying he was 'demonised. In an interview with CNN-IBN, the former external affairs minister blamed Indias first PM Jawaharlal Nehru for the partition. Nehru believed in a highly centralised polity. Thats what he wanted India to be. Jinnah wanted a federal polity. That even Gandhi accepted. Nehru didnt. Consistently, he stood in the way of a federal India until 1947 when it became a partitioned India, Jaswant told Karan Thapar in Devils Advocate. Jaswant strongly contested the popular Indian view that Jinnah was the villain of the 1947 partition or the man principally responsible for it. Asked if he thought this view was wrong, Jaswant said: It is. It is not borne out of the facts... we need to correct it. I think we have misunderstood him because we needed to create a demon... We needed a demon because in the 20th century the most-telling event in the Subcontinent was the partition of the country, Singh said. Jaswant, whose biography on Jinnah would be released today (Monday), said he did not subscribe to the popular demonisation of Jinnah and said he was attracted by the personality of the Pakistani leader. Of course I dont. To that I dont subscribe. I was attracted by the personality which has resulted in a book. If I was not drawn to the personality I wouldnt have written the book. Its an intricate, complex personality, of great character, determination, Singh said. Jaswant also questioned the wisdom of Indians who hesitated to call Jinnah a great Indian. Asked if he views Jinnah as a great man, he said: Oh yes, because he created something out of nothing and single-handedly stood against the might of the Congress Party and against the British who didnt really like him ... Gandhi himself called Jinnah a great Indian. Why dont we recognise that? Why dont we see and try to understand. Why he called him that? He said Jinnah was a nationalist leader. He fought the British for an independent India but also fought resolutely and relentlessly for the interest of Muslims of India... the acme of his nationalistic achievement was the 1916 Lucknow Pact of Hindu-Muslim unity, he said. I admire certain aspects of his personality. His determination and the will to rise. He was a self-made man. Mahatma Gandhi was the son of a Diwan. All these (people) - Nehru and others - were born to wealth and position. Jinnah created for himself a position. He carved in Bombay, a metropolitan city, a position for himself. He was so poor he had to walk to work... he told one of his biographers there was always room at the top but theres no lift. And he never sought a lift, Singh said.