NEW DELHI, 17 August — A Union Cabinet minister and a close confidante of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was under a cloud yesterday after the wife of a top police officer wanted for murder blamed him for the crime.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pramod Mahajan of the ruling Hindu extremist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), insisted he had no role in the 1999 murder of journalist Shivani Bhatnagar. The allegation against Mahajan could not have come at a worse time for BJP, which has been hit by two major corruption scandals in the past two weeks.

Madhu Sharma, wife of Inspector General of Police R.K. Sharma who has been on the run since Aug. 1 after being accused of ordering the murder of the woman, told stunned reporters late Thursday that Mahajan was the mastermind.

The hysterical woman, a mother of two grown up daughters, screamed at reporters besieging her husband’s home in Chandigarh city that Mahajan spoke to the journalist on telephone shortly before she was strangled at her New Delhi home on Jan. 23, 1999.

The sensational allegation forced Mahajan to issue a flurry of denials, claiming that he was being framed.

The BJP sprang to his rescue as did Delhi Police, who after several hiccups since 1999 have arrested the suspected contract killer and an accomplice who reportedly implicated the absconding Sharma.

Shivani, who as a correspondent of The Indian Express newspaper, apparently knew both Sharma and Mahajan while she covered the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) where both men were based.

Published reports have said Shivani, who was married, may have been romantically involved with Sharma and wanted to marry him. Since the killing there has been speculation that Mahajan was also close to the dead woman. Mahajan admitted he knew Shivani but insisted it was only a professional relationship.

This is the first time a murder charge has been thrown at a Cabinet minister in the country.

Luckily for Mahajan, most opposition parties appeared to disbelieve the allegation. “I only met her at my official residence or at the party headquarters. I am ready for any kind of inquiry — by the police, the press or even by Madhu Sharma herself,” the minister said here. “R.K. Sharma is on the run and his wife should not sensationalize the case. This kind of rumor mongering has been going on for a while, and I am relieved that now the truth will come out. I refute the charges, I am ready for any inquiry.”

The BJP also announced its decision to sue the wife of the police officer for pointing the finger of suspicion at Mahajan.

The warning came after Madhu claimed late Thursday that Mahajan was “involved” in the murder, but she did not explain how. “Why are you after my husband?” she screamed at reporters. “I am saying Pramod Mahajan is involved... Does any one of you have the guts to go and ask Mahajan whether or not he had a relationship with Shivani?

“Also ask him whether or not he spoke to Shivani for 45 minutes on the day of her murder? Get his telephone number, get the phone records, make them public.” Additional Commissioner of Police Qamar Ahmed said: “We have not come across the role of any politician in the murder.”

The threat of official retribution did not deter the family of Sharma. “If my father, a senior Indian Police Service officer, can be made prime suspect on the basis of telephone calls, then why not Mahajan as also all others who had telephonic conversation with Shivani Bhatnagar,” said Sharma’s eldest daughter Pragati.

Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani leapt to the defense of Mahajan. “These are baseless allegations being made against a valued Cabinet colleague from a suspect who is absconding,” Advani said.

But the Congress party leader P.R. Dasmunshi urged Mahajan to resign from the Cabinet until he was proved innocent, most other opposition leaders tried to play down the gravity of the allegation.

However, Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) leader P. Ramachandra Pillai said: “I will not ask for Maahajan’s resignation. This sounds like a baseless allegation. If she has proof, why does not she go to the court?”

Analyst G.V.L. Narasimha Rao admitted that these were troubled times for the BJP. “A lot of mud is getting raked up and some of it will stick,” Rao said.