New Delhi: Stepping up its offensive on the foreign origin issue, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today (Feb 11, 2004) accused the Congress of "irresponsible governance" during the tenure of late Rajiv Gandhi when the Prime Minister's house had "access to funds from abroad".

Quoting from a book 'A Cabinet Secretary Looks Back' by B G Deshmukh, former Cabinet Secretary and Principal Secretary to Gandhi, party spokesman and Law Minister Arun Jaitley said in one instance the Prime Minister's Special Security was being asked to go to Italy for special training.

When no paper moved in the Government and the then Prime Minister was confronted, he (Gandhi) had said the "party would bear the expenses".

"To require other private persons belonging to a coterie or foreign relatives to handle important security matters of the nation only illustrates the magnitude of the threat that a Constitutional authority of foreign origin can result in," the Minister said.

Jaitely said the issue in the present election was the ability to provide responsible governance. "This is a reflection on how irresponsible a governance the Congress party could provide to the country," he said.

Jaitley said extracts from the book revealed when Deshmukh opposed the idea and suggested that the funds be made available out of the intelligence funds of the Government, he was asked to resolve the matter with a private person, Captain Satish Sharma, who then informed the Director of RAW to speak to a certain Italian person.

The Italian person was a relative of the then Prime Minister through the family of his "in-laws".

The Director of RAW was asked to carry the Italian currency in a suitcase and deliver it to this person. When pointed out by the Cabinet Secretary that these arrangements were not acceptable, he was asked to forget about it and thereafter the Prime Minister's house excluded him from this affair and became more discreet with him. Subsequently an Italian trainer was called to train the security personnel.

Deshmukh concludes that he "realised that in the Mughal Durbar-like functioning of the Gandhis, I have committed the cardinal sin of cross-checking with the king himself the message he conveyed to me through his aides".

Jaitley said this showed the manner in which governance took place under the Congress and our focus would be the "ability of the BJP to govern in comparison to the kind of governance of earlier Governments".