NEW DELHI, 10 May — Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s chief aide was in the eye of a new storm yesterday over a trip three years ago to Britain and France to explain New Delhi’s decision to conduct a series of nuclear tests.
The government rejected speculation that the London-based billionaire Hinduja brothers helped National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra to meet French President Jacques Chirac in Paris in June, 1998 to explain India’s reasons for conducting nuclear tests. India and Pakistan carried out their first tit-for-tat nuclear tests in May 1998. “The story is untrue and baseless,” Foreign Ministry spokesman R.S. Jassal said of local media reports that the Hinduja brothers had escorted Mishra to a meeting with Chirac at the Elysee Palace.
The denial came one day after the Indian Foreign Office admitted the Hindujas “facilitated” a meeting between Mishra and British Prime Minister Tony Blair the same month during the adviser’s whirlwind tour of the five major nuclear armed states.
The Hindujas are currently under court orders to remain in India and face trial over the 1986 Bofors arms scandal, in which the billionaires as well as several others are charged with taking kickbacks to clinch a $1.3 billion deal.
Jassal insisted the Hindujas, whose empire stretches from pharmaceuticals to information technology, “facilitated” Mishra’s talks with Blair before they were officially charged in the Bofors scandal.
The spokesman insisted the practice of using “facilitators” was not uncommon in the world of international diplomacy.
Following the 1998 tests Mishra was required to visit several countries to establish contact at the highest possible level, particularly with the traditional five nuclear powers to convey India’s perspective on the security environment, he said.
“In Britain, the Hindujas offered to facilitate a meeting between Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair and Mishra and it was naturally accepted in national interest,” Jassal said, adding that he was unaware if the Hindujas participated in the talks.
Leakage of the report has made the government vulnerable to another attack from the opposition. Calling the Mishra-Hinduja visit as “a serious breach of security and elementary government procedures,” the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) demanded that “Mishra must be immediately removed from the posts of principal secretary and national security adviser. This is absolutely essential to restore public confidence.”
The Congress party has also demanded an explanation over the episode. “There is an imperative need for Brajesh Mishra and the government to come clean on this. The country can’t be kept in the dark.”
Critics of Mishra say the security adviser has been virtually running Vajpayee’s 19-month coalition government. Vajpayee’s right-wing Hindu allies had demanded Mishra’s resignation in March after a website linked the high-flying bureaucrat to shady arms dealers. Mishra had denied any wrongdoing.
