Confirming the appointment, Jaswant Singh told The Indian Express that the former minister, whom he has personally known for years, had in the wake of Pakistan's aggression into Indian territory, offered his services to the government to ``work in any capacity''.

``I have exploited his sense of nationalism and he's now working with me on a token salary of one rupee a month,'' Singh said.

Arun Singh, widely believed as the ``man who knew too much'' on the Bofors gun deal, preferred to quit his job when the Bofors contract began to unravel on allegations of kickbacks to the Rajiv Gandhi family.

Ironically, it is the same Bofors 155-mm gun that is being used with unerring effect in the current conflict against Pakistan at the LoC. A schoolfriend of Gandhi, Arun Singh was inducted into Rajiv's Cabinet as arank outsider (he was a corporate executive), but grew to be widely regarded for his equation with the armed forces. Since his resignation in June 1987, he has been living as a recluse in the Himalayan foothills. He was not available for comment today. The nature of Arun Singh's new job is expected to cover the grey, overlapping areas between the Ministry of External Affairs and the Ministry of Defence, and will last the ``duration of the crisis.''

Jaswant Singh characterised it as the ``management of crisis. We have naturally been working in an integrated manner on the Kargil conflict. (With Arun Singh's appointment) we will work together on preparing assessments and action papers on various situations.''

Arun Singh's appointment is a virtual coup for the Bharatiya Janata Party government, since in his last incarnation, he was a Congress minister. However, he headed the Arun Singh Committee on Defence Expenditure and made recommendations to the Vishwanath Pratap Singh government.

The appointment iswidely being interpreted in political circles as a move to clip the wings of Defence Minister George Fernandes following the various faux pas he has made since the Kargil conflict started.