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NDTV's Rahul Shrivastava (NDTV 24x 7) Reports

Tuesday, July 25, 2006 (New Delhi):


Former Defence Minister Jaswant Singh's revelation about a spy in the Prime Minister's Office has started a guessing game on who was it?

Jaswant Singh is revealing the mole’s identity only bit by bit with some more clues on Tuesday.

And the plot thickens as Jaswant Singh, who had promised to tell Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who the mole in Narasimha Rao's office was, instead only gave a few more teasers but no names. So this is what India now knows ---

• The so called mole was a civil servant


• He was close to Narasimha Rao. In fact the letter written by the American diplomat to a US senator says the man had "direct access to the PM."


• When Jaswant Singh got the letter the bureaucrat was no longer in the PMO.


• He had left India

Jaswant Singh has still not given a direct answer to why he did not share information about a PMO mole with his own party leader Atal Behari Vajpayee. He maintains it's because the official could no longer influence policy.

There are some other ambiguities in his public statements. For example, in his interview to NDTV, Jaswant Singh said he got the letter well after 1995. So when exactly did the former external affairs minister get hold of the letter?

"Under the Official Secrets Act such information should never be revealed. It can lead to punishment," said Bhuvanesh Chaturvedi, State Minister.

Jaswant Singh's “who dunnit” has the Parliament and the country guessing. Political parties, who are not part of the controversy, feel that Jaswant Singh and the Prime Minister must meet and share information.

News from: NDTV

posted by News India @ 2:43 AM