BJP assails PM for denying an audience to Jaswant on 'mole' issue

New Delhi, July 31: The BJP today assailedthe Prime Minister for not giving an appointment to Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Jaswant Singh to clarify his view on the ''mole'' in the Prime Minister's Office ferreting nuclear secrets to the United States he had referred to in his book 'Call to Honour'.

It is very ''unbecoming'' on the part of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh not giving an audience to the Leader of Opposition, BJP Parliamentary Party Spokesman Vijay Kumar Malhotra told newspersons.

Mr Malhotra, however, declined to give any clear answer to the question when Mr Jaswant Singh had so long kept the secret unto himself about the alleged ''mole''.

BJP sources said Mr Singh nowhere had mentioned about the existence of a 'mole' in his book but had made inference based on the letter in his possession that sombody was leaking information about the 'intention' to conduct thermo nuclear tests at a time when the world was not sure if India was intending to carry out the tests.

Mr Singh himself was on record stating that he did not use this information when he was in Opposition or when the NDA was in office at the Centre nor did he confront the United States to tell them that this was what they were doing with India.

When the issue figured in Rajya Sabha amid acrimony and noisy scenes, Mr Jaswant Singh told the House that he was ready to answer any question in the House if it was brought up in an appropriate manner in the House itself.

Meanwhile, informed sources said that Mr Singh had sent a ''lengthy reply'' to the Prime Minister's Sunday letter stating that he had not revealed the name of the alleged informant in Mr P V Narasimha Rao's office.

UNI