Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Tuesday the government?s image was unmarred after his foreign minister stepped aside during an inquiry into claims he benefited from irregularities in the UN oil-for-food programme in Iraq.

?Our image has not been spoilt,? Singh told a press conference in the eastern city of Patna in Bihar state. Foreign minister Natwar Singh quit the foreign minister?s job on Monday, the first political casualty of a report by former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, who said many politicians profited from the $ 64-billion programme. Natwar Singh is now minister without portfolio and Manmohan Singh has taken extra charge of the foreign ministry.

Natwar Singh was named in the report along with the ruling Congress party, which heads the federal coalition. Both have denied any wrongdoing or having anything to do with oil-for-food contracts or oil allocations made by the Saddam Hussein regime.

Congress crisis

Manmohan Singh earlier this week ordered two probes into the Volcker report, despite the references to the Congress and Natwar Singh being ?unsubstantiated?, he said. ?We want to go deep into this...and find out what the truth is,? the prime minister said. ?This is a matter of pride for our government.?

Some analysts and newspapers say the Congress-led government is facing its worst crisis since coming to power in May last year and the prime minister ? whose image as an honest and decent politician is his strength ? should be worried. ?Manmohan Singh should be worried about his own image,? political analyst Mahesh Rangarajan said. ?Corruption has hurt the Congress in the past,? he said, referring to an arms kickbacks scandal that dogged the Congress government in the 1980s.

Though analysts saw no immediate threat to the government, which is backed from outside by communists, it could be under severe pressure from the opposition if the Congress and its allies lose a key state election later this month. Polls have forecast the opposition nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies were ahead in the eastern state of Bihar, one of India?s most populous states.

?After Volcker, the government should become anxious about the Bihar results?, Rangarajan said. ?If the Congress and its allies lose Bihar after Volcker, it will enthuse the BJP and make it very aggressive.? The Congress party, smarting from the Volcker report, has written to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan asking him for all evidence relating to Natwar Singh and the party.

The UN said it did not expect its ties with the Indian government to be hit due to the report. ?The report is not tantamount to either a legal chargesheet or a finding that some wrong has been committed,? UN spokesman Shashi Tharoor told NDTV television news. The Indian prime minister leaves for Dhaka on Friday for a regional South Asian summit.

PROFILE: NATWAR SINGH

Former ambassador

Natwar Singh, who has been stripped of his duties as Indian foreign minister, is a Cambridge-educated former diplomat with a leaning towards the left. He has been an outspoken supporter of several iconic Third World leaders such as Cuba?s Fidel Castro, Egypt?s Nasser and even Saddam Hussein. Recent comments that he regretted the break-up of the former Soviet Union and opposed the US action in Iraq has put him at odds with many in the government. However, the removal will be an embarrassment to the Congress Party?s Gandhi dynasty, to whom he was very close and personally very loyal. As a former ambassador to Pakistan, he was able to tap into the goodwill created by his contacts there and push forward the nations? peace process. His life has also seen personal tragedy. Several years ago his daughter committed suicide, shortly after his estranged Jordanian-born daughter-in-law also killed herself. His son, Jagat, is also under investigation for the Iraq oil-for-food scandal that has caused the foreign minister to stand aside.

Royal family

Natwar Singh was born in 1931. He graduated from the University of Delhi. He later studied at Corpus Christi College in Cambridge and Peking University. He joined the Indian foreign service in 1953 and served for 31 years. He served on several important UN committees and in 1983 was appointed secretary-general of the 7th non-aligned summit in Delhi.

He was a junior minister in the cabinet under Rajiv Gandhi and became foreign minister when Congress regained power in May last year. Congress were in opposition in 2001, when Mr Singh and the party are alleged to have colluded with Saddam Hussein?s regime for financial benefit. Natwar Singh comes from a Rajasthan royal family and his wife is the daughter of the former ruler of Patiala in Punjab - one of the richest princely states in pre-independent India. Mr Singh has also written a number of books, including a tribute to the novelist EM Forster.