Shortly after noon on Sunday, March 30, N.C. Padhi, special director, Intelligence Bureau, received a surprise phone call from his 1968 Madhya Pradesh cadre IPS batchmate, Ajit Jogi, now Chhattisgarh chief minister. Jogi invited his old friend for a cup of tea at the Chhattisgarh Bhavan in Delhi and Padhi gladly accepted it.

MISDEED: Jogi's docudrama may have alienated even the top Congress leadership

Less than 24 hours later, Padhi was rueing his decision. He discovered to his utter disbelief that Jogi's invitation had nothing to do with rekindling old memories. It was a trap Padhi's old friend had laid for him. At a press conference at the Congress party headquarters on March 31, Jogi released copies of a letter he had written to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to protest against "the IB's deliberate attempt to target him under a plan code-named Operation Black Sea". He also enclosed copies of a "Top Secret/Confidential" document allegedly prepared by the IB's "special directorate" on among other things, his Swiss bank accounts, properties and other assets that he is supposed to have amassed after he became the chief minister of the new state, which came into being on November 1, 2001.

The allegations were the kind that would make any politician run for cover if they were true, or react in furious indignation if it was just muck-raking. Jogi did neither. If that was not enough to raise eyebrows, the fact that Jogi himself was giving publicity to the alleged charges certainly did. In less than a day, the pieces began to fall into place. Vajpayee reacted to Jogi's charges by ordering a CBI probe into the authenticity of the document that Jogi had circulated. Such a probe, government sources say, would force Jogi to disclose how he acquired a "secret document" of the IB; the CBI also had registered a case for the offence of forging a government document.

Obviously taken aback by the Centre's swift response, Jogi dispatched a second letter to Vajpayee, this one harping on technicalities about "one investigating agency of the Government of India inquiring into another". While insisting that the ib document in his possession should not be prejudged as forged, he demanded that an independent joint parliamentary committee be set up to look into the matter.

IB officials are intrigued by the document-drama and cited a number of reasons to explain why the item was faked (see box). "Obviously whoever forged the document was not familiar with the Official Secrets Act. But Jogi being a former civil servant should have been observant," points out an IB special director. The prime minister as well as IB officials have denied the existence of Operation Black Sea. "Such an operation is outside the IB's charter. Corruption falls within the ambit of the vigilance wing of the CBI," says an IB official.

Jogi avoids any public reference to his meeting with Padhi. To pointed queries, his stock answer is: "I meet so many people that I can't remember the names of all of them." But as the document saga began to boomerang, Jogi's spin doctors worked overtime trying to link the leak to the premier intelligence agency. They dropped hints about his Sunday engagement with Padhi to suggest that the "top secret/confidential" IB document circulated by Jogi was indeed handed to him by the official. They also said that as a former IPS officer, Jogi has extensive contacts in the IB, even with its director K.P. Singh, a Chhattisgarh cadre officer.

However, there are few takers for Jogi's arguments, even within the Congress. Senior leaders admit the whole drama could have been scripted by Jogi to pre-empt the disclosure of wealth amassed by his family. State Congress leaders feel the BJP may use the corruption charges against Jogi in the state assembly election this year-end the same way the Congress did against the Prem Kumar Dhumal government in the Himachal Pradesh assembly elections last month.

Senior AICC functionaries fear that the CBI probe could land both Jogi and the party in trouble. They are livid at Jogi's misadventure, coming as it did within a day after the hugely successful two-day Block Congress Committee convention in Delhi addressed by Sonia Gandhi. "At the Desh Bachao rally in Delhi, we had railed against NDA's corruption. By protesting against a CBI probe, Jogi has undone all the gains made over the weekend," said a leader. Sonia's aides distanced her from the IB document, saying she had not seen nor asked for it, but Ambika Soni, Sonia's political secretary, was willing to give Jogi the benefit of doubt. "I am sure the chief minister has enough reasons to vouch for its authenticity," she said.

Jogi, of course, is no stranger to controversy. Though he claims to be a tribal, the SC/ST Commission declared him a Scheduled Caste in 2001; the case questioning his tribal status is still pending in the Bilaspur High Court. In February 1999, Jogi did the unthinkable in Parliament-when he cast a ballot on behalf of A.B.A. Ghani Khan Choudhary, MP from Malda, in a crucial vote in the Lok Sabha relating to the ratification of President's rule in Bihar. The Lok Sabha Speaker ordered an inquiry when the matter was brought to his notice. Jogi was saved the blushes-and perhaps worse-only by the premature dissolution of Parliament in April that year.

The wager in political circles is that this time Jogi may not be so lucky. While he has friends in the BJP, it is difficult to see them bailing him out in an election year. Even before the IB fiasco, Jogi had a sackful of troubles. And since the scene of the latest adventure is the capital, the Centre did not even have to seek the mandatory permission from the state Government to ask CBI to get cracking. Jogi's martyr game has come unstuck and left him with very little room for manoeuvring. When the CBI comes calling, he will have few options left. He is damned if he cooperates with the probe. And damned if he doesn't.

— with Neeraj Mishra in Raipur