India's prime minister on Tuesday described as unsubstantiated charges that his Congress party and a cabinet minister had benefited from shady deals linked to the UN oil-for-food programme for Iraq.
"Our image has not been sullied," Manmohan Singh was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India news agency. "Only (an) unsubstantiated reference has been made ... There is no evidence."
The premier said the ruling Congress party and minister Natwar Singh had been named in the report, written by former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, but added that "anybody can write this anywhere".
"This does not prove how much truth is there in this," he said, speaking in Patna, the capital of the eastern state of Bihar. "We will go to the depth of this and find out the truth."
Singh's remarks came a day after he stripped Natwar Singh of his foreign affairs portfolio, pending an inquiry into claims that he benefited from the oil-for-food programme.
On Monday, the premier's office announced that former chief judge R.S. Pathak would look into the claims made in the UN report.
The Volcker report - which caused a political furore in India - named Natwar Singh as a non-contractual beneficiary of four million barrels of Iraqi oil allotted to Zurich-based firm Masefield AG.
The Congress party, India's oldest political entity, was also listed as a beneficiary of a separate allotment of four million barrels of oil.
The Volcker report found that Saddam's regime manipulated the programme to extract about 1.8 billion dollars in surcharges and bribes, while an inept UN headquarters failed to exert administrative control.
On Sunday the government also appointed Virender Dayal, India's former under-secretary to the United Nations, to obtain information about the charges against the ruling party and its members.
The government says the inquiries by Pathak and Dayal are independent of each other, and Singh said the aim of both commissions was "to get to the truth of the matter".
Earlier Tuesday, Natwar Singh said claims he benefited from the oil-for-food programme were a slur on him and the Congress party.
"I am just a loyal member of the big party," he told a rally of cheering supporters outside his official residence. "If somebody levels this kind of allegations, they should be ashamed of themselves.
"The Congress party and I are not afraid of any probe."
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