US dismisses Jaswant letter as virtual forgery

New Delhi, Aug 2 (UNI) Pushing senior BJP leader Jaswant Singh to the wall, the United States today virtually dismissed as a forgery a document he had cited to press his claim of a mole in the Prime Minister's office during the Narasimha Rao regime.

''The letter is not official US Government correspondence.

The US Embassy was not asked to examine this document before its publication. Had we been asked we would have pointed out that it is a poor imitation of official US Government correspondence,'' a spokesperson for the US Embassy said about the alleged correspondence between US Senator Thomas Graham and former American Ambassador to India Harry Barnes.

In an interview to NDTV, Mr Barnes -- the US Ambassador to India during 1981-1985 -- refuted Mr Singh's claim of such a letter, saying he was not in India in 1995 when it was supposedly written, but at the Carter Centre as Director of the conflict resolution and human rights programmes.

He said he was in India when Mr Narasimha Rao was the External Affairs Minister and not when he was the Prime Minister.

He, however, admitted that he knew Mr Graham who was a representative of the Rockfeller Centre in New York and communicated with him ''off and on, along with matters concerning other countries.'' Mr Barnes also said he was never contacted by Mr Singh about the letter which allegedly talked about the presence of a mole in the PMO.

In a related development, the Congress gave notice for breach of privilege against Mr Singh for misleading the Rajya Sabha on the issue with a ''forged'' letter.

The privilege notice was given by Congress MP V Narayansamy, party spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan told reporters.

''It is a serious matter involving national security as a person no less than a former Defence Minister and External Affairs Minister made an irresponsible allegation in the Rajya Sabha yesterday against the security of the country, endangering the democratic system,'' she said, adding Mr Singh had not been able to substantiate his own statement regarding the mole in the PMO.

The CPI(M) and the Samajwadi Party have co-sponsored the motion, said CPI (M) MP Sitaram Yechury.

''As a minister in the then government, Mr Jaswant Singh is obliged to divulge the information, which he claimed to have had, in the larger national interest. This, he has not done, committing a violation of at least 14 provisions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), which is an offence...'' Mr Yechury told a news conference citing Supreme Court rulings.

Mr Singh had made the X X X (EDS: Here picking up from opening para of DI 62, Politics-Jaswant-US Three Last New Delhi).

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