PM indicates unhappiness with timing of Rahul's outburst

On board PM's Special Aircraft: The Prime Minister has reacted today for the first time to last week's public outburst by Rahul Gandhi against an ordinance cleared by the cabinet to protect convicted parliamentarians. Dr Manmohan Singh said he will not resign over the controversy, but his remarks suggested that he questions Mr Gandhi's decision to go public with his criticism while the Prime Minister was abroad.

"I have seen Mr Rahul Gandhi's statement. When issues are raised in democratic polity, the right course is to discuss the issues. Mr Rahul Gandhi has asked me for a meeting. I will also take my cabinet colleagues in confidence. There is no question of resigning," he said.

The Prime Minister's remarks - his first since Mr Gandhi described the ordinance cleared by Dr Manmohan Singh as "nonsense" - were made to reporters on his way back to India from the US, where he attended the UN General Assembly. He also stressed that the ordinance, which allows convicted MPs to remain in office while their appeal is heard by a higher court, was cleared at a meeting on September 21 of senior Congress leaders including party president Sonia Gandhi.

Dr Singh will meet Mr Gandhi tomorrow morning before another meeting with President Pranab Mukherjee, who has received the contentious ordinance for his approval. Later in the day, the cabinet will meet to decide whether to withdraw the ordinance, while contesting that it was designed to shield criminal MPs.

The opposition has said Mr Gandhi's public derision of the ordinance has grossly undermined the Prime Minister while he was on an international stage.

Dr Singh told reporters that he does not share that feeling because the Congress "is not an authoritarian structure" and "every Congress leader has the right to question a decision", but his remarks today indicate that he has concerns about the timing of Mr Gandhi's scathing review of the executive order. Dr Singh told reporters traveling home with him that that he is "not the master of what people say" and "is used to ups and downs."

Stop misuse of investigative agencies to falsely implicate Narendra Modi: Arun Jaitley to PM

In a letter to the Prime Minister, BJP leader Arun Jaitley has accused the Congress of misusing investigative agencies like the CBI to "falsely implicate" Narendra Modi and his close aides in the run-up to the national elections.

Mr Modi, the Chief Minister of Gujarat, is the BJP's candidate for Prime Minister.  "Congress cannot fight the BJP and Narendra Modi politically," Mr Jaitley writes, charging the government with trying to link the chief minister and his former Home Minister Amit Shah to a series of fake encounters in Gujarat, where Muslims were killed by the state police which alleged that they were terrorists. (read Jaitley's letter to PM)

Mr Jaitley writes to the PM, "I do believe that it is your responsibility and indeed duty to look into all these facts and restore the professionalism and independence of the Investigative agencies.  If this practice is not stopped it will set a precedent which will hurt India's Democracy. The charges of politicization and motivated investigation should all be subjected to a Commission of Inquiry headed by a sitting of the Supreme Court."

In July, the CBI filed its first chargesheet in the case of Ishrat Jehan, who was shot dead on the outskirts of Ahmedabad along with three men in 2004. The CBI has accused seven Gujarat police officers of murder and destruction of evidence. One of them, DG Vanzara, who was a senior officer with the Crime Branch, recently wrote an explosive letter to Mr Modi in which he alleged that the shooting had been sanctioned by Amit Shah, who was then Home Minister.  Mr Vanzara also reiterated what the policemen have said in their defence - that the Intelligence Bureau had warned that 19-year-old Ishrat and the men killed with her were terrorists from the Lashkar-e-Taiba who were planning to assassinate Mr Modi.

The CBI did not name Mr Modi or Mr Shah in its chargesheet, but senior officers have said that their investigation will expand now to look at the possible political conspiracy and the alleged cover-up by officials of the Gujarat government.