'My book on Iraq scam will bring out truth'

NEW DELHI: Former external affairs minister K. Natwar Singh is writing a tell-all book on the Iraqi oil-for-food scam in which he was named a beneficiary and which cost him his job.

"In my book I will prove that neither me nor my son (Jagat Singh) took a single penny from the oil deal. The only beneficiaries were (friends of Jagat) Andaleeb Sehgal and Aditya Khanna," Singh, once a prominent Congress leader, said.

"All I did was to give three letters of recommendation. What is the big deal about that? Many people do it," Singh added.

The oil-for-food scam that led to Singh's resignation from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's cabinet in December 2005 still rankles him. "Crores (tens of millions) of rupees were spent on the investigation though the total money transacted in the deal was only Rs.40 lakh (Rs.4 million).

"Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials visited the US, Switzerland, Iraq and other countries and stayed in the best hotels, only to come up with nothing," he said.

On May 5, the Supreme Court stopped proceedings against Natwar Singh in the case and asked the ED to submit documents to prove his involvement.

The UN had asked Paul Volcker, a former head of the US Federal Reserve, to probe the scam. Thereafter, an Indian government committee headed by former Supreme Court chief justice R.S. Pathak validated the findings.

Singh's book will also deal with the role played by Pathak in the case.

When asked whether Congress president Sonia Gandhi's suspicion of his involvement had pained him, he said: "She acted in haste (in distancing herself from me and forcing my resignation). How could she say that she merely had a working relationship with me when I was so close to the family?"

After resigning from the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of parliament, and the Congress party in February, Singh, 78, is writing three other books as well.

"My book 'Yours Sincerely' will be out in October. It is a collection of letters that I received from various people since I was 15 years old," he explained.

"In India, people don't preserve letters. They destroy them. But I saved all the letters, including those written to me by C. Rajagopalachari, Indira Gandhi, Nirad C. Chaudhuri, E.M. Forster, Zia-ul Haq, Sunil Dutt, R.K. Narayanan,........," Natwar Singh said, rattling off a long list of names.

Rajagopalachari was independent India's first governor general; Gandhi was a former prime minister; Chaudhuri, Forester and Narayanan are authors; Zia was a former Pakistani military dictator ; and Dutt was an actor and a former central minister.

"The book will also have a letter written by (Prime Minister) Manmohan Singh," Singh said smugly.

"The first letter I received was when I was 15 years old. It was written by (former prime minister) Jawaharlal Nehru's sister Krishna Hutheesing, whose kids studied with me," he added.

The former career diplomat, whose first posting was in China, is also writing "China Diary-1956-2006" , which will hit the bookstores in December. "It will have about 300 pages and lots of photos," Singh said.

"I had accompanied (then prime minister) Rajiv (Gandhi) when he visited China in 1988 to renew relations with the Chinese," he said.

Yet another book with a self-explanatory title, "Diplomatic Incidents-1953-2005", will be completed by February 2009.

"It is always better to release books in winter when most people (the movers and shakers) are in Delhi," Singh said, responding to a question on why his publisher Rupa had scheduled all the releases for winter.

Singh has authored two biographies and many other books over the years. A respected reviewer of books for magazines and journals, he now spends much time in his personal library as he works on his forthcoming books.

The library houses a rich collection of rare and out-of-print books.