New Delhi: Former external affairs minister and senior BJP leader Jaswant Singh has said that the US 'mole' at the Prime Minister's Office during PV Narasimha Rao's tenure was a civil servant at a high position.
Without naming the person, he said the 'mole' had given information about India's "nuclear programme and nuclear intent" to the US.
Reacting to a challenge thrown at him by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Jaswant Singh has offered to reveal the name to the PM in confidence and says that he would not like to make it public.
Earlier On Tuesday, he sought time from the Prime Minister to disclose information about the US 'mole'.
He said he had already sought an appointment with the Prime Minister to do so.
"The civil servant was in such a high position that he was privy to a lot of information," Jaswant Singh had said. He however, evaded a clear-cut reply when asked repeatedly why the subsequent NDA government allowed this civil servant to go scot-free despite him having leaked sensitive information.
"It did not involve serious secrets," Jaswant said and added that secrets like technology to make a nuclear bomb can be downloaded on the Internet these days.
The BJP leader also stated that in April 1996, he had got in his possession, a letter written by a US diplomat to a Senator, which spoke about the leakage of information from the PMO during Narasimha Rao's tenure.
"The US was fully in knowledge of what we were doing," said Singh referring to India's nuclear programme.
The Former External Affairs Minister, who was engaged in four-year-long talks with the US on nuclear issue during the NDA rule, said he was not sure whether Washington was irked more because India conducted the atomic tests or because they were unable to detect plans to conduct Pokhran explosions in 1998.
On Monday, in an exclusive interview with CNN-IBN he had claimed that the person has since left India.
Jaswant Singh first made the revelation about the US 'mole' at Narasima Rao's PMO in his book, A Call To Honour.
The BJP leader is likely to provide, in "unabridged form," certain letters in his possession, on the basis for which he arrived at the conclusion in his latest book that someone in the PMO was leaking nuclear information to the United States.
"This was happening before and is happening now," Jaswant Singh asserted.
When asked if he has sent his information to the PM, BJP leader Vijay Kumar Malhotra said the BJP leader had sought time from the PM and would himself clarify his stand at a news conference on Tuesday.
Jaswant Singh maintains that he had not disclosed the name even though he was in possession of the letter even before NDA came to power nor did he confront the US on the issue when he was External Affairs Minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.
Noting that the Congress was seeking to make "a mountain out of a molehill" of the 'benign act' of saving over 160 hijacked passengers onboard the Indian Airlines flight in Kandahar, Malhotra said Jaswant Singh had made it clear that no money was paid to the terrorists.
"This despite the fact that the terrorists had sought $200 million, 36 imprisoned terrorists and the handing over the mortal remains of another terrorist killed in an encounter," Malhotra added.
The Government had to 'compromise' for the sake of the lives of innocent passengers and release three prisoners including Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar, Malhotra said.
Malhotra added that he had read the relevant passages in the book but found nothing adverse about the handling of the riots by the Gujarat government headed by Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
"Jaswant Singh has applauded the tough handling of riots," he contended.
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