Congress spokesman apologises over 'CIA agent' tweet

Congress spokesperson Sanjay Jha Monday tendered an unconditional apology to former union minister Subramanian Swamy for calling him a "CIA agent" in a tweet about two months back.

Jha said he had no wilful intention to defame the BJP leader.

In the apology, Jha said the impugned tweet, made April 25, was not intended to be any such allegation that Swamy was a CIA agent.

He said the tweet was "nothing more than a spontaneous enquiry" on the despatch authored by a US State Department diplomat, which was leaked out by WikiLeaks.

"Therefore, solely to invite discussions in social media to seek perspectives and in good faith, the undersigned had submitted an opinion based on this published WikiLeaks item. Hence it was never the intention of the undersigned to malign Dr. Swamy, to sully his reputation at all or to defame him," Jha said in his apology.

Jha also noted that the source of the said leak does not confirm or even suggest that Swamy is a CIA agent.

He said he misread and misunderstood the WikiLeaks disclosure.

"I, therefore, regret any disrepute or pain caused to Dr. Swamy, since that was never my intention and especially so as I hold Dr. Swamy in high esteem," he said.

Jha said he tenders an "unconditional apology" for publishing the impugned tweet and said he will delete it.

Jha was served legal notice May 12.