Headlines
Getting lot of messages of support from colleagues: Sujatha Singh
New Delhi, Jan 31
Former foreign secretary
Sujatha Singh Saturday said she was getting a lot of messages of support
from her colleagues in the ministry of external affairs after she was
abruptly relieved of her post three days ago.
In her second
television interview in as many days after her tenure was "curtailed"
Wednesday night, seven months before the two-year term was to end, Singh
also termed as "complete nonsense" media reports claiming the Prime
Minister's Office was miffed with her over some policy decisions.
"All
the men and women who have been sending me messages of support and
thanks, I have received a lot of support from colleagues, in emails,
messages and phone calls," Singh told Headlines Today.
Singh,
who was replaced with S. Jaishankar, India's envoy to the US, said she
is proud of many of the things she has done during her tenure as foreign
secretary.
"Many things I am proud of, I gave the
administration a humane face, gave transparency to the system, I used to
talk to the officers," she said.
She said she did not think that
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in any way unhappy with her work and
she used to interact frequently with him, sometimes thrice a day.
She
also said when she was sounded out about three weeks ago for another
job with a tenure, she refused saying "I said the day you want me to go,
tell me I will put in my papers."
She said when the Modi
government reshuffled the secretaries of the previous government, there
was a "mood of uncertainty" around, but refused to elaborate.
On
her relations with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Singh said
she had "good relations with the EAM, I was loyal to her and we
understood each other quite well".
She termed as completely
untrue media reports saying the Modi government did not want to go ahead
with the vote against Israel, saying there had been no change in the
policy vis-a-vis Israel or Palestine.
She wondered who was
"leaking" such information as "I don't leak information, I don't believe
in giving journalists access to classified information or defaming
anyone".
Singh said when the government at its swearing in
decided to invite the SAARC leaders on May 26 last year and BJP leader
Arun Jaitley asked her about it, she said she told him it is a great
idea and started working towards making it a success.
Singh also
said she told the prime minister to go to Bhutan for his first bilateral
trip. "Bhutan was my idea," she said adding that so was the Japan trip.
"I can't think of a single idea that was shot down," she said.
She
also dismissed media reports saying that then prime minister Manmohan
Singh was keen to appoint Jaishankar as foreign secretary in 2013 but
had to go by her as Congress president Sonia Gandhi had backed the
appointment.
She said Manmohan Singh is known for his reticence
and wondered how then his purported views on Jaishankar could have found
such wide media play.
She said on Jan 28 night she wrote in her
resignation letter that she was seeking early retirement "as instructed
by the prime minister". Singh said she was also asked if she would like
to meet him, but declined.
"I did what I had to do, and it is
over with", she said, adding that she wanted to go "with my reputation
intact and my record unblemished" and not be maligned by the media.
She
said she had been planning for the heads of missions conference next
month and had thought of putting up a plaque for the officers killed in
Kabul.