New Delhi: Senior BJP leader Jaswant Singh has claimed the P V Narasimha Rao regime knew of a US mole in the PMO and challenged the government to take legal action against him for not naming the spy.
The former external affairs minister also alleged Rao's government was somehow involved in leaking secrets about the country's nuclear programme.
"Government had the information because it was the government that was leaking (nuclear secrets)," he said in an interview to Karan Thapar for CNBC's India Tonight show when asked why he had not disclosed the information about the mole when he came to know of it over a decade ago.
He insisted the spy he has referred to in his book A Call To Honour was part and parcel of the government. "How do you separate someone from the government?" he asked.
Singh, who insisted he was under no obligation to share information about the spy with anybody, challenged the government to charge him for not making the identity of the mole public.
"If I can be charged, why does the government not charge me?" he asked when referred to his former BJP leader Ram Jethmalani's remarks that his silence on the issue was a criminal offence.
Singh did not give a straight reply to a question as to whether he was suggesting that Narasimha Rao was aware of the leaks from his office.
"Better ask those that were associated with the Prime Minister...(But) government was aware because its elements of the government (that) leaked and the government is not a singular," he said.
"Oh yes, oh yes...," he remarked when asked if an individual could be deemed the government.
Singh, who denied his act of withholding the identity of the mole was an act of "irresponsibility", said he would disclose the name of the spy who worked in the PMO only to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
He also denied he had identified the spy as a civil servant. "I have said I am not sure whether he was a civil or an uncivil servant. He was certainly working with the Prime Minister's Office. Then itself, he was no longer associated because the Prime Minister had changed."
Referred to claims in his book that the information about the mole could have been supplied to him to put the then government in an embarrassing situation, Singh said he kept it secret because he believed its disclosure could have destabilised pre-1998 governments that were "dependent on the principal party".
"I saw the purpose of that letter...to destabilise the government," he said.
"I had word sent to (Prime Minister Manmohan Singh) and his private secretary that I would like to meet him. He has not yet found time...to call me. The minute he calls me, I will give him all this information," said Singh, who claimed the information about the spy lost its significance after the nuclear tests of 1998.
Singh, who took as a personal insult suggestions that his silence amounted to protecting a traitor, maintained he would name nobody before the press.
"I have made a request with the Prime Minister. I will stand by what I have said. I will not simply share it with the press."
He denied allegations that he was using stunts to create publicity for his book, terming such suggestions a "dishonour" to his intentions.
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