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| Congress demands privilege motion against Jaswant | | |
New Delhi, Aug 02: The Rajya Sabha on Wednesday witnessed a furore as Congress members, led by V Narayanasamy, sought to move a privilege motion against the Leader of the Opposition Jaswant Singh for misleading the House by claiming that there was a mole in Narasimha Rao’s PMO. The statement of intent from the ruling party comes after Singh’s categorical denial of knowing who the mole was in the PMO.
Soon after the question hour in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday, Narayanasamy along with several of his party colleagues were up on their feet waving newspapers accusing Singh of breach of privilege over the issue.
But Chairman Bhairon Singh Shekhawat disallowed Narayanasamy from raising it saying until he examined the notice he would not permit him to do so.
"I am examining it. The matter is under examination. Till I take any decision, you will not be allowed to speak... showing newspapers is also a breach of privilege of the House," Shekhawat said.
This sparked angry protests from Congress members and in the din, senior Congress member Santosh Bagrodia wanted to know whether the letter given by Singh in the course of his statement yesterday in the House was authenticated.
The Chairman said he would look at the papers and then give his ruling.
After ten minutes of noisy scenes and procedural wrangles on when a point of order could be raised, the matter was set to rest and the next listed business regarding the plight of farmers was taken up.
I never claimed to know the mole: Jaswant Singh
In an interview to a television channel Singh gave a categorical denial saying, “I do not know. I never claimed to know. This was speculated by the media.”
Even when confronted by his statement ruling out VS Arunachalam as the mole who leaked information about planned nuke tests to the US, Singh unconvincingly maintained that he had ruled Arunachalam out as he believed the person, who wrote the letter was no longer in India.
Barnes refutes Jaswant’s claim
Jaswant Singh’s claim in the House that the letter was written by Harry Barnes to TW Graham also fell flat as Barnes denied writing any such letter to the then head of US Internal Security.
Incredibly, Barnes had left India by the time Narasimha Rao’s government came to power. He served in India from 1951 to 1953 in Mumbai and then in the capacity of ambassador to India from 1981 and 1985 in Delhi. He was an envoy to India at a time when Rao was only the Foreign Minister. Barnes retired from US foreign service in 1988 way before Rao took over as the PM.
Barnes, it must be mentioned, admitted knowing Thomas W Graham and writing to him about matter concerning India and other countries.
Jaswant Singh in his memoirs, A Call to Honour, wrote about a communication in 1995, between Harry Barnes and a certain Thomas W Graham, claiming access to classified security information. He shared the same information with the Upper House yesterday.
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