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Congress on BJP's ‘insinuations’ against Hamid Ansari: ‘The level that PM will…'
A Pakistani columnist boasted on camera that he used to pass on information collected during his India visits to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
Congress on Wednesday strongly condemned the “insinuations and innuendos” by a BJP spokesperson against party chief Sonia Gandhi and former vice president Hamid Ansari after the Bharatiya Janata Party accused Ansari of inviting a Pakistani journalist who has claimed to have spied for the ISI. Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said in a statement that the facts regarding a conference in question are “already out in the public domain”, calling the accusations “character assassination of worst form”.
A Pakistani columnist, Nusrat Mirza, had boasted on camera that he used to pass on information collected during his India visits to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). He claimed that he had visited India on several occasions. "I was invited to India at the time of Vice Presidentship of Mohammad Hamid Ansari."
Citing the purported claims of the Pakistani journalist, BJP spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia alleged that Ansari shared many "sensitive and highly classified" information with him. He also cited comments of a former operative of R&AW, to allege that Ansari had harmed the country's interests when he was its envoy to Iran.
"The levels that the Prime Minister and his party colleagues will stoop to debase public debate and spread their patented brand of lies is staggering. It reflects sickness of mind and lack of any form of integrity whatsoever," Jairam Ramesh said.
Ansari also issued a statement dismissing the allegations as “litany of falsehood”.
"Yesterday and today a litany of falsehood has been unleashed on me personally in the sections of the media and by the official spokesman of the Bharatiya Janata Party: that as Vice-President of India I had invited the Pakistani journalist, Nusrat Mirza. That I had met him in a conference in New Delhi on 'Terrorism', and that while as Ambassador to Iran, I had betrayed the national interest in a matter for which allegations have been made by a former official of a government agency," the statement read.
Ansari said that invitations to foreign dignitaries by India's vice-president are on the advice of the government, generally through the ministry of external affairs.
"My work as Ambassador to Iran was at all times within the knowledge of the government of the day. I am bound by the commitment to national security in such matters and refrain from commenting on them. The Government of India has all the information and is the only authority to tell the truth. It is a matter of record that after my stint in Tehran I was appointed India's Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York. My work there has been acknowledged at home and abroad," it added.
