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Congress seeks Mahajan's job description

Sharad Pawar, leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, has said the Congress would write to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee seeking to know the exact nature of work assigned to Pramod Mahajan, who has been appointed political adviser to the prime minister with Cabinet rank.

He told reporters in Nagpur over the weekend that the government had not responded to the demand made by his party collague Pranab Mukherjee in the Rajya Sabha in this connection. Unlike the political advisers of former prime ministers Rajiv Gandhi and P V Narasimha Rao, Mahajan had been given an office at South Block. It was not clear whether he was handling government files without taking the oath of secrecy, he remarked.

Pawar said the Vajpayee government could not afford to keep mum on the issue, as the Opposition would have "22 occasions" in the next Parliament session to corner it.

Pawar, who is a former defence minister, said there was no need to have fears about Pakistan test-firing its Ghauri missile. "That Pakistan would do so with Chinese help was known to India and our country has more effective missiles than Ghauri in its arsenal", he remarked.

Asked whether India should exercise its nuclear option now, he said he would prefer not to comment. Such sensitive matters could not be publicly debated, he remarked.

UNI

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