Natwar tries to win House sympathy

Short of ammunition to continue his fight against an army of detractors in both the Congress and the government, it was a much subdued Natwar Singh who sought to strike sympathetic and compassionate chords with his colleagues to spare him a stigma "in the evening" of his life that was otherwise marked by an unblemished political and diplomatic career.

Terming the RS Pathak Inquiry Authority report as "flawed" and its conclusions "questionable", the former external affairs minister sounded desperate to buy peace with the world, which had suddenly turned indifferent to his pleas of innocence.

"The record of my public life has been without any blemish...I have no reason to indulge in acts of impropriety for petty financial gains...I am in the evening of my life...Clean I came in the world and clean I will depart," said a visibly forlorn Singh, concluding his personal explanation in the Rajya Sabha today.

He gave in meekly to the proposal to expunge a portion of his speech as desired by Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Suresh Pachauri.

Singh refrained from making any adverse reference to either Congress President Sonia Gandhi or Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, although he did question the Pathak Authority's decision not to further investigate how the Congress came to be mentioned as a non-contractual beneficiary in the Iraqi oil-for-food scam.

He said he had kept Gandhi informed about his "political discussions" in Iraq where, he claimed, he had no discussion with any Iraqi authority on the oil-for-food programme, contracts or transactions. The former minister said his son Jagat Singh did accompany him but he had paid for his son's fare.

He had also not added any names to the four-member delegation as he had no authority to do so. The Volcker report was biased as was evident from the deletion of the names of many US companies, said Singh.

Apparently making a departure from his previous claims to question the authenticity of the three letters that he had written to Iraqi authorities to recommend Andaleeb Sehgal, Singh said he could not be held responsible for what his letters were used for. And, if at all they were used, it was a "legitimate contract" under the oil-for-food programme supervised by the UN.