The Congress party on Sunday dismissed as "pure sensationalism and vague allegations," reports that the Soviet secret service KGB had bribed its politicians including ministers in Indira Gandhi's government as claimed in a new book.
"This is pure sensationalism not even remotely based on facts or records," party spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said reacting to disclosures contained in 'The Mitrokhin Archives II : The KGB and the World', excerpts of which were published in a London daily on Saturday.
"These are all vague allegations," he said, pointing out that they were not the officially released USSR archive records and were based on papers "stolen" by a person who defected to the West in 1992. They are not official records."
"They should not be dignified by reaction," he said, adding, "it is the version of a person who is publishing it after 15 years of his defection and 50 years after everybody involved in the incidents was prsent.. almost everyone has died.. there is no way of checking..."
Besides, he noted that there was not a single specific fact date or name given in the dislosures, which "are only meant for sensationalism. They have no truth at all."
The book had claimed that India was one of the countries "most successfully penetrated" by KGB and that the Kremlin spent a fortune trying to influence the press, police, ministers and the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
Former Bihar Chief Minister Jagannath Mishra also rebuked the allegations against Indira Gandhi and his brother late Lalit Narain Mishra that they had received money from the KGB.
Mishra, younger brother of Lalit Narain Mishra, denied that Indira Gandhi and his brother had any link with the KGB and said it was an attempt to "malign the former prime minister and Lalit babu both of whom were not not alive to deny the charge."
He, however, admitted that his brother, who was Railway minister in Indira Gandhi cabinet was of "left leaning" and so was Indira Gandhi and that "Lalit Narain Mishra had brought the Congress close to the CPI".
The Mitrokin archive and another book "the state within state-KGB and its hold on Russia" has referred to the Congress and the Communists taking money from the KGB.