'Mole' in PMO: Jaswant waits for PM's summons

Former external affairs minister Jaswant Singh today said that the alleged US "mole" in former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao's office, about whom he had written in his book 'A Call to Honour', was a retired civil servant who was "neither in the country nor in office."

Singh said he would reveal the name of the alleged mole along with all the documentary proof that he has "to the Prime Minister only when he summons me." Singh said he got the information about the alleged mole in April-May 1996, when the BJP first came to power for a mere 13 days.

"At that time, I felt that to go after a high enough civil servant, who was in a position to leak secrets, would be political vendetta. I would be digging graves really, since the person was neither in the country nor in office," he said.

He added that the reason for his disclosure was not to 'sensationalise' his book, but to prove that the US knew about the Indian nuclear programme for long and was wrong in applying sanctions against India after the 1998 tests.

When asked as to why he did not want the civil servant exposed, he said that the information passed was not "so much about nuclear programmes, but about nuclear intent."

"There is enough about nuclear devices on the Net in any case," he said. "The reason why the Pokhran II tests could be hidden was because we were aware of the leak," he said. "This was the reason, rather than the blasts themselves that irked the Americans," he added.

He objected to the language used by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and said that he would not seek an appointment with the PM and would wait for the PM to summon him.