New Delhi, July 30
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said that former External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh had not disclosed the name of the alleged “mole” in the PMO during the tenure of P.V. Narasimha Rao in his communication to him.
Acknowledging the receipt of a letter and some documents on the issue from Jaswant Singh, the Prime Minister in his reply to him said “the document which you have sent is not original and has no signature or letterhead. The alleged informant is not named, nor is there any confirmation that the person was from the PMO.”
In the one-para letter to Jaswant Singh, the Prime Minister has expressed surprise over the manner in which the issue was handled by the BJP leader.
He said, “I have received your letter of July 28 regarding an information in the PMO in mid 90s. Simultaneously, I find that a copy of the letter has been published in the latest issue of India Today.”
He expressed surprise why Jaswant Singh had been sitting over the information for all these years and asked him whether he had any further information in that regard that he wished to disclose to the public.
“I am, however, surprised that the material sent by you was in your possession when you were a member of the Union Council of Ministers and you still did not share it with my predecessor,” he said in an apparent reference to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee whom he succeeded.
Jaswant Singh, in his book “A Call to Honour”, has claimed that there was a “mole” in the PMO during Rao’s regime, who allegedly leaked information to the USA on the country’s nuclear programme.
The letter, dated July 29, of Dr Singh to the BJP leader, was released to the media by Prime Minister’s Media Adviser Sanjay Baru here today in the wake of publication of reports on the alleged “mole” in the PMO during the past few days.
A brief statement accompanying the letter said the reply was being sent to Jaswant Singh by the Prime Minister in the wake of media reports on the issue.
Dr Manmohan Singh, who is credited with initiating the economic reforms in the country in 1991, was the Finance Minister in Rao’s government.
Meanwhile, pushed on the defensive by its leader Jaswant Singh’s references to the “mole” in the Narasimha Rao government, the BJP today said Singh’s office would reply to the PMO’s comments that his letter did not name the informer.
“The reply will come from Jaswant Singh’s office,” said BJP spokesman Ravi Shankar Prasad.
The Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha was not immediately available for comments.
