Monday, July 31 2006 11:23 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The battle on the issue of mole in the PMO during Narasimha Rao's tenure escalated yesterday (July 30,2006) with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh rubbishing senior BJP leader Jaswant Singh's claim that the name of the informer and all other details have been given to the PM and asking him to make it public if he still has.

Manmohan Singh also faulted Jaswant Singh, former External Affairs Minister, for not disclosing the issue to the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee under whom he was a minister.

Jaswant Singh was not available for comments but BJP spokesman Ravi Shankar Prasad said the office of the former External Affairs Minister would reply to the PMO's comments today.

Manmohan Singh today shot off a letter to Jaswant Singh following a statement the former union minister had made in Mumbai yesterday that the name of the US' 'mole' in the PMO during the Narasimha Rao regime, referred to by him in his book 'A Call to Honour', and other details have been given to Manmohan Singh in his letter sent on July 28.

Manmohan Singh said Jaswant Singh in his letter did not name the "alleged informant" in PMO who leaked nuclear secrets to the US and there was no confirmation that the person was from PMO.

"No such name (of the mole) has been given by Jaswant Singh", the Prime Minister's Media Advisor Sanjaya Baru told reporters here.

The Prime Minister also said he was surprised that Jaswant Singh had not shared the material in his possession as a Cabinet Minister with the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

"The document which you sent me is not an original document and has no signature or letterhead," Singh said in a short reply today to Jaswant Singh.

Giving details of the letter to the mediapersons, Baru said reports have been appearing in a section of the media that Jaswant Singh, who is the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha, has communicated some information pertaining to certain allegations he had made with respect to leakage of information from the PMO in the 1990s.

"The alleged informant is not named (in Jaswant Singh's letter) nor is there any confirmation that the person was from the PMO", the Prime Minister wrote to Jaswant Singh," he said.

Baru said Jaswant Singh's letter to the Prime Minister was no different from what he has already shared with the media.

"I have received your letter of July 28 regarding an informant in the PMO in the mid 1990s," the Prime Minister said in his reply to Jaswant Singh written today.

"Simultaneously, I find that a copy of the letter has been published in the latest issue of India Today. It's the same letter which has been addressed to the Prime Minister. No other information has been given," he said.