The debate has acquired urgency because both, President KR Narayanan and Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee are known to have divergent views on the issue dealt with in the leaked letters- bail-out package for the telecom companies.

What shocked both Rashtrapati Bhavan and the PMO was that details of the Prime Minister's letter addressed to President Narayanan found their way to about a dozen dailies in the capital the same day. Was it deliberate? Even as discreet enquiries were underway from both Rashtrapati Bhavan and the PMO, the episode has left a sordid chapter in the relations between the two highest constitutional functionaries of the country.

Despite protestations to the contrary, Rashtrapati Bhavan and the PMO do not seem to enjoy the rapport that they had. It is clearfrom the manner in which Rashtrapati Bhavan sources made a laboured attempt through the columns of a prominent daily to suggest that the two highest functionaries of the land had no personal differences while, highlighting the differences on the telecom bail-out issue unmistakably.

Both the Rashtrapati Bhavan and the PMO sources admitted in private that the leakage had embarrassed the two functionaries no end. And it had begun to affect the relationship between the two institutions. Rashtrapati Bhavan, was deluged with queries by newspersons on whether yet another letter by President Narayanan was shot off. This followed rumours to this effect earlier.

While feigning ignorance of any such letter, a Rashtrapati Bhawan functionary said "communications between various departments of the government were a normal affair." Such remarks only fuelled the speculation further. Prying newspersons are now anxious to know who writes the next letter and who could be the possible source of leakage. Both thebureaucratic and the political channels were working overtime to feed the insatiable scribes as regards the source of the leakage. Though the enquiry is still on, it is believed in the bureaucratic circles that a over-zealous middle level official who made his entry into the PMO through political route was responsible for the leak.

Expectedly, such conclusion has resulted in wider political controversy. "Was it (the leak) done to damage the reputation of the Prime Minister as part of any larger conspiracy? Was it an effort to spoil the relationship between the President and the Prime Minister? Or was it the handiwork of the telecom lobby who wanted to win the cake by hook or by crook?" These are some of the unpalatable questions raised in various circles.

On their part, Opposition parties have been only too eager to exploit the matter on the eve of the mid-term elections. "This is bound to become an election issue. The government has to come clean in the telecom bail-out package offered to big players",said a Congress leader.