New Delhi: In 2004, UPA chief Sonia Gandhi wrote to the then finance minister P. Chidambaram asking him to ensure that the financers of Tehelka are not meted out “unjust or unfair treatment”, claims former Samata Party president Jaya Jaitly.
Tehelka magazine had done a sting operation on alleged corruption in defence deals during the previous Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA government which later resulted in the resignation of the then defence minister George Fernandes.
Ms Jaitly made the claims in the book Life Among the Scorpions in which she appears to target the Congress over Tehelka’s ‘Operation West End’ sting. Justice S.N. Phukan, then heading the Assam State Human Rights Commission, was named to take up the Tehelka inquiry in January 2003.
“Justice Phukan meant business and did not allow anyone to delay matters. He took calmly the fact that the Tehelka team decided to walk out of the Commission’s proceedings as soon he announced the tapes were being sent for checking,” writes Ms Jaitly.
“...When the Commission was still at work, Sonia Gandhi, as head of the UPA and the National Advisory Council, wrote an official letter to finance minister P. Chidambaram, dated 25/27 September 2004 —a copy of which was provided to me by a highly placed source in the Opposition — asking him to ensure that First Global, Tehelka’s financiers, are not meted out ‘unjust or unfair treatment’.
“She was, in fact, saying the very same thing I was trying to explain to the Tehelka person asking me a favour for the purpose of entrapment.”
“Here again, irony was visiting...,” the book, published by Rupa, says.
On Monday, Mr Chidambaram suggested that the media ask the government for release of his reply to UPA chief Sonia Gandhi.
