Sonia wrote to Chidambaram to resolve Tehelka issue

Ex-chief of the erstwhile Samata Party, Jaya Jaitly, has alleged Congress had a hand in the Tehelka sting, 'Operation Westend,' while saying its chief Sonia Gandhi wrote to FM P Chidambaram in 2004 to ensure that financers of the publication were not given "unfair" or "unjust" treatment.

Jaitly's charges have been made in her book 'Life among the Scorpions: Memoirs of a Woman in Indian Politics', which will be released on Tuesday. Operation Westend had led to the resignations of then BJP president Bangaru Laxman and defence minister George Fernandes.

The book carries Gandhi's letter written in September 2004 where she asks Chidambaram to look into issue on a priority "to ensure that no unfair or unjust treatment is meted out to the petitioners (Tehelka financers)".

Gandhi was chairperson of the National Advisory Council then.

Chidambaram in his reaction said the letter and his reply to it should be read together. He has dared the NDA government to release his reply. Jaitly said while Fernandes wanted to resign in the wake of the sting, then home minister LK Advani and external affairs minister Jaswant Singh advised him against it. However, Vajpayee suggested Fernandes should quit and the latter was "only too eager to oblige".

She also claimed that she met defence 'middleman' Christian Michel who bragged that he had helped Narasimha Rao to spy on Sonia Gandhi. Jaitly appeared to be soft on Advani and said he tried to dispel the notion that his party was a 'Hindu only' party. Jaitly is critical of Bihar CM Nitish Kumar too in her book. She says Kumar didn't honour his promise to Fernandes to allot her an RS seat.