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Jaswant’s ‘mole’ in PMO recoils

	August 07, 2006

Senior BJP leader and former Union Minister Jaswant Singh’s failure to name the alleged US ‘mole’ in the Prime Minister’s Office during Narasimha Rao’s government, may cost him dear. Jaswant Singh who held various Cabinet posts including that of Minister of External Affairs, Finance and Defence, in Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Government, was pilloried in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, August 1, for his failure to give the name of the mole mentioned in his book - A Call to Honour. The BJP and the RSS are also reported to be unhappy with Jaswant Singh for the mole fiasco and there are reports that he may lose the post of the leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha which he occupies as the leader of the BJP in the House.



Jaswant Singh is also facing a breach of privilege notice for allegedly misleading the Rajya Sabha since the very basis of his ‘mole in the PMO’ theory has been rebutted.



A section of BJP leaders is strongly pleading with the party high command that punishment must be meted out to Jaswant Singh for derailing the party from its set agenda and turning it into a butt of jokes and an object of ridicule, sources said.



The RSS, which has never backed Jaswant Singh and was instrumental in his transfer from the Ministry of External Affairs during the Vajpayee regime, is also said to be supporting the above move, the sources said.



There is deep resentment within the party cadres and leaders, including BJP MPs, over the timing of Jaswant Singh’s book, “A Call to Honour”, which in their assessment has instead of taking the stock of the party up in the eyes of the people, has brought it down.



A senior functionary of the party said his “mole game” had played a spoil sport as “we had failed in training our guns” at the ruling UPA coalition in the ongoing month-long monsoon session of Parliament.



“We had a host of issues, but now we are trying to defend our leader for which we are ill-equipped”, he said, adding that “two weeks of the session are already over”.



Meanwhile, after the “mole” episode in the Rajya Sabha, the Congress again zeroed in on Jaswant Singh in the Lok Sabha for his role in the Kandahar hijacking crisis and demanded a joint parliamentary committee probe on whether $200 million was paid as ransom for the release of 166 passengers.





PM dares Jaswant to name mole



During the debate on the mole issue in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, August 1, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh dared Jaswant Singh to come out with the name of the mole referred to in his book.



“It is because I hold Jaswant Singhji in high esteem that when he levels serious charges against the PMO and about the present PMO too - in television interviews - that we were being snooped [upon] and are even now being snooped [on], that I appeal to his sense of chivalry to name the person if he has any evidence. And if you do not have, then let the country draw its own conclusions.”



The Prime Minister’s two-minute intervention came after Jaswant Singh’s two-hour-long clarification.



Chairman Bhairon Singh Shekhawat had allowed a limited discussion on the issue in response to the resolutions moved by Shahid Siddiqui (Samajwadi Party) and V. Narayanaswamy (Congress), seeking clarity on the issue, both from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Jaswant Singh.



The Prime Minister’s sense of outrage was evident from the unusual number of interventions he made during the course of the long clarification by Jaswant Singh.



At one point, Dr. Singh said, “We want the name of the mole. Why is he shying away from naming the person?”



Later, outside the House, he was quoted by agencies as saying that Jaswant Singh’s statement in the House showed how low the top BJP leadership could “stoop.”





In related developments, the US Embassy in India has said that the document tabled by Jaswant Singh in the Rajya Sabha appears to be a poor imitation of official US government correspondence. Harry Barnes, a former US Ambassador to India, also denied knowledge or memory of the document.



A PIL seeking the registration of an FIR against former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the then Defence Minister Jaswant Singh was filed in Delhi High Court for allegedly concealing information about claims of a mole in the Prime Minister’s office during Narasimha Rao’s tenure as Prime Minister.