The party's speakers referred to traitors within the Congress who didn't want Rajiv as Prime Minister and that was the only intrigue in the day-long discussions. For most part, all parties took known stances.

For example, the Congress rejected the ATR calling it a political document, the CPI hit out at the Congress for pulling down the United Front government, the DMK spoke of its innocence and the Congress' dealings with the LTTE, the AIADMK wanted an FIR against M Karunanidhi and Subramanian Swamy said he was being targeted because he wanted the BJP government out.

Union Home Minister L K Advani and Urban Affairs Minister Ram Jethmalani spoke on the government's behalf, both promising a full probe into the wider conspiracy in Rajiv's killingand the involvement of a foreign hand. But the Congress hit out at the government with its Deputy Leader in the Lok Sabha P Shiv Shanker saying the BJP was playing politics with a sensitive issue.

It appeared as though the Jain Commission report was being used to score political points by all parties which spent a long time hitting out at each other's rivals. The AIADMK and the DMK spent a fair amount of lung power shouting each other down even after CPI leader Indrajit Gupta warned against such a thing in his speech.

Curiously, Shiv Shanker and Ajit Jogi of the Congress referred to people within their own party who could have played a role in Rajiv's assassination. There was no immediate clarity on whom they were referring to with some party MPs suggesting it could be P V Narasimha Rao. However, another point of view was that the party might have been trying to take a moral approach to the issue to show it wasn't bothered who would be indicted as long as the truth was out.

Shiv Shanker said his partydidn't want any witch-hunting for Rajiv's killing and was only interested in getting the truth out. He alleged the governments at the Centre after 1991 did not want the Jain Commission to unravel the truth and put hurdles in its path. He also criticised bureaucrats for not doing much on the issue and converting the ATR on the final report into a cover-up document.

Stress was laid on why no effort was made to decode the LTTE messages including one on June 18, 1988, which said that LTTE was making garlands of bullets for Rajiv Gandhi. These were decoded only before the Commission and not earlier, Shanker added.

Indrajit Gupta spoke of how some documents couldn't be provided to the Jain Commission as they too sensitive. He also referred to how the Congress played slow on the Thakkar Commission report which probed the Indira Gandhi assassination, saying the Congress had thus set a bad precedent.

Subramanian Swamy felt there was nothing controversial about his visit to London enroute to Monte Carlo tocollect some documents on Jethmalani. He said he met Chandraswami whom he knew for a decade in Monte Carlo and not in London as stated by the Jain Commission.

Laloo Prasad Yadav contributed his bit calling the ATR an ``action tarnished report'' which exposed the BJP's incompetence. Murasoli Maran claimed the DMK had not given tacit support to the LTTE but in fact gave open support as it was the Centre's stated policy then. Jogi intervened to protest saying Rajiv didn't want the DMK's to weaponise the LTTE but only wanted the DMK's help to sort out the problem in a peaceful manner.

Advani is slated to reply tomorrow to the debate in the afternoon after which the Lok Sabha is scheduled to be adjourned.