IANS/New Delhi

The controversy around a letter seeking denial of US visa to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi deepened yesterday, as many MPs whose name appears on it claimed they did not sign any such letter.

Senior Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader, Sitaram Yechury, yesterday said he did not sign the letter, and called it a “cut and paste” job.

Mohamed Adeeb, the Rajya Sabha member who had faxed the letter, however, maintained it was genuine.

Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) member from the Rajya Sabha, K P Ramalingam, CPI MP Achutan, Nationalist Congress Party MPs Vandana Chavan and Sanjeev Naik, and Congress MPs Marotrao Kowase, Anil Lad and Jayantrao Avale have all denied signing the letter.

“I deny having signed any such letter,” Yechury said. “The one circulating in cyberspace, now, many months after it was allegedly signed, is typed on the letterhead of an MP that carries the insignia of our national symbol, the Ashok Chakra. The heading under which some signatures are appended says: ‘Names and signatures of Indian MPs’,” Yechury pointed out.

“Strange, which other country’s MPs would sign on the letterhead of the Indian parliament? This itself suggests some efforts at cut and paste,” Yechury claimed.

“It is not in my nature to write to presidents of other countries telling them what they should do with visas for Indian nationals,” the CPI-M leader said.

The letter, carrying the signatures of many Indian parliamentarians, was dispatched to both the US president and the British prime minister last year.

A copy of the letter was resent to the White House on Tuesday after Bharatiya Janata Party president Rajnath Singh, on a recent visit to the US, asked the government there to issue a visa to Modi.

The letter was forwarded by Rajya Sabha’s Independent member Mohamed Adeeb, who expressed shock at Yechury’s reaction. “I am shocked. I don’t believe that a person like Yechury is saying something like this. I have his signature. His name is ninth on the list. How can I paste it? I am a member of parliament and I cannot do such a thing. If he says that I have cheated him, I will take him to court,” Adeeb said.

“I welcome a probe. Will resign from the Rajya Sabha and go to jail if signatures on the letter to Obama are forged,” Adeeb tweeted yesterday afternoon.

Earlier, Adeeb said that “40 MPs from the Rajya Sabha and 25 from the Lok Sabha” signed the letter, which was written in November 2012, before the Gujarat assembly elections.