Within hour of Advani’s call, upset PM told Bharadwaj to step in, act

Within an hour of Opposition leader L K Advani raising the ASI’s affidavit on the Sethusamudram project with the UPA government, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh instructed Law Minister H R Bharadwaj to take “immediate measures” to withdraw the objectionable paragraph in the document submitted before Supreme Court.

Government sources told The Indian Express that soon after Advani raised the matter with the PM on the sidelines of the official banquet in honour of Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev on Wednesday, Singh called up Bharadwaj at 10 pm and asked him to take “corrective” measures. Bharadwaj had already made it clear to Advani — he was present during his meeting with PM — that his Ministry had nothing to do with the affidavit. The next day, on Thursday, Bharadwaj was summoned to the PMO at 10.30 am where the Prime Minister asked him to go public with the announcement on the fresh affidavit.

It is understood that once the PM was apprised of the affidavit, he expressed his anguish to PMO officials citing the fact that Ram finds mention in the Sikh holy book Guru Granth Sahib. He even singled out the relevant excerpt from the Holy Book, referring to Page 1390 where it’s mentioned that in the Treta Yuga, the power was Ram who was from the Raghuvansh dynasty.

The decision to withdraw the affidavit came after an informal meeting was held to discuss the prospects of future elections at the RCR complex on Thursday night. It was attended by party president Sonia Gandhi, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram and all Congress general secretaries.