BJP declines comment on US' reaction to Jaswant letter

New Delhi, Aug 2 (UNI) The BJP today declined to comment on US contention that the letter, quoted by party leader Jaswant Singh as proof of leaks from the PMO, was a ''false imitation'' of official US government correspondence.

Mr Jaswant Singh has said in Rajya Sabha yesterday that this was the letter that he had received when he was a member of opposition in 1995.

While Mr Singh was not himself available for comment, BJP parliamentry party spokesperson Vijay Kumar Malhotra said Mr Singh, in his book ''Call to Honour'' had never spoken of a mole.

Based on the letter, Mr Singh had made his own inference that someone in P V Narasima Rao's office was leaking the information about the intentions of the government to conduct nuclear tests.

Mr Malhotra said it was also a fact that nuclear tests had to be abandoned not just during Mr Rao's period but also in early 1980s, when late Indira Gandhi was the Prime Minister because of the pressure exerted by the US on those regimes.

When BJP came to power, the US was not able to get information of the government's preparations for conducting the tests. So this obviously shows that someone was leaking information at the highest level and this is what Mr Singh wanted the country to know by exposing the leak at the highest level, he said, adding that it was not just Mr Singh who had written a book where the contents were questioned. People like former Prime Minister V P Singh and Bishan Tandon, OSD to Ms Gandhi, had writen books which were contested.

The parliament did not discuss the revelations of the defected KGB operative Vasilli Mitrokhin in the 'Mitrokhin Archives I and II'.

Mr Singh had never claimed that the letter in his possession was authentic and genuine and hence their was no need to comment on the US condentions, Prof malhotra said.

Meanwhile, Mr Singh's phone calls were being answered by a sentry at the gate who said that any call would be put through to him only tomorrow.

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