The Congress core group met here late on Friday evening under the chairmanship of party president Sonia Gandhi and is learnt to have discussed issues arising out of the ongoing controversy.
The over 60-minute meeting was attended by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, home minister P. Chidambaram, defence minister A.K. Antony and Mrs Gandhi’s political secretary, Mr Ahmed Patel.
Congress spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan, speaking earlier on Friday on Congress leader Digvijay Singh’s reported remarks about “US pressure”, said, “There is no question of the Rajiv Gandhi government being implicated. Digvijay Singh has explained his statement... The question of indictment of the Rajiv Gandhi government does not arise.”
Ms Natrajan, however, deflected a volley of questions, saying whatever facts needed to be further examined would be examined by the group of ministers constituted by the Prime Minister. “Whatever needs to be done will be done,” she added.
Asked whether Mr Arjun Singh was being provoked to speak out on the issue, the spokesperson said, “I don’t think any such attempt is being made.”
Claiming that Mr Arjun Singh is the “only person who can answer”, Mr Dhawan said, “I do not believe that Rajiv Gandhi would have known about the developments or asked Arjun Singh to provide the aircraft to Mr Anderson by which he flew out of Bhopal.”
Meanwhile, Mr Digvijay Singh, in an email to a news agency on Friday, clarified his statement of Thursday on the issue, saying he was unaware of the developments. “At that time I was not part of the Madhya Pradesh government and was campaigning for the Lok Sabha polls.”
The AICC general secretary said the “people who can answer this” are “Arjun Singhji, the then CM”, as also Brahm Swaroop, then state chief secretary, Moti Singh, then the collector of Bhopal, and Swaraj Puri, the then SP of Bhopal.
On the action taken by then Central and Madhya Pradesh governments, Mr Digvijay Singh said he could not “sit in judgment”. He said Rajiv Gandhi had left his campaign and visited the affected areas immediately. “The government of India extended all possible help immediately to the state government,” he added.