Jain meets Vajpayee as IB gives him a clean chit

After the meeting, held at 7, Race Course Road, Jain told The Indian Express

that he had urged the Prime Minister to go into the details of the allegation against him. If he found even a hint of any suspicion against him, he should be punished. But if not, then those responsible for maligning him should be punished.

In a case that has been getting curiouser by the day, neither the Prime Minister nor the Home Minister apparently had knowledge about the report till the crisis blew up in their faces, sources said.

Advani was reportedly informed about the episode by Information and Broadcasting Minister Sushma Swaraj, whose ministry had received the RAW report and attached it to the two applications made by Jain which were pending before it — one for the setting up of a teleport in Greater Noida and the other for accreditation for his news agency, like the one enjoyed by ANI.

A shocked Advani is believed to have confronted Brajesh Mishra with the report, seeking to know the basis for it. The Home Minister is then understood to have told Mishra that the report appeared to be false and flimsy and that some mistake had obviously been made. It also had serious implications for the Government, as J.K.Jain, considered an insider by the BJP, had free access to Cabinet Ministers in their offices and homes.

Over the years, most BJP leaders have been treated at Jain’s clinic, and it was his wife who had accompanied RSS leader Nanaji Deshmukh everywhere when he was underground during the Emergency in 1975-76.

Advani is learnt to have suggested to Mishra that the Intelligence Bureau be asked to go into the veracity of the charge that had been levelled by RAW. RAW and the IB work directly under the Prime Minister but their chiefs have also been reporting to Brajesh Mishra, not in his capacity as Principal Secretary to the PM but as National Security Advisor.

The IB report reportedly gave a clean chit to Jain. With two contradictory reports on Jain with the Government, it was left to the Prime Minister to resolve the issue.

Following Jain’s meeting with him, the Prime Minister may even call for the original material on the basis of which RAW had concluded that Jain was an ISI agent and that the network he headed would pass on sensitive information to Pakistan, if given the facilities he was asking for.

A report like the one put out by RAW is normally routed through the cabinet secretariat to the PMO, to the Home Ministry and then to the concerned ministries. It can only be annulled or withdrawn at the instance of the Prime Minister.

During the past two days, the war between Jain and Mishra has come into public view. Since last Thursday, Jain TV has been putting out hourly bulletins threatening to “expose” the “black deeds” of Brajesh Mishra, ridiculing him as a “de facto PM”. Jain TV’s hourly blurb promises to bring an “exclusive expose” baring Mishra’s “corruption, his nepotism and his bungling” before the viewers “very soon”.

Jain has accused Mishra of getting the report written by RAW to fix him and strangulate his channel economically at the behest of an industrial house.

“We have a lot of material on Mishra,” Jain warned. “A dirty attack has been made against me and I have decided to fight to the finish. If such meanness is not punished in public life, a lot of damage will be done to Indian democratic traditions, to the Government, to our beloved leader Vajpayee and to our party,” he added.

Mishra, who is hospitalised, was not available for comment, but others in Government dismissed the whole affair as much ado about nothing. “The report was probably put out by a lower level policeman, and this shows once again how threatened we are by the stupidity of our intelligence agencies,” they said. It was certainly not a conspiracy by Mishra against Jain, as was being made out, they argued.