India Threatens to Deport Pm's Critic

India's Hindu nationalist government was last night poised to deport a British journalist after he wrote an article suggesting that the country's elderly prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, fell asleep in cabinet meetings, was prone to "interminable silences" and enjoyed a nightly whisky.

Authorities are today expected to summon Alex Perry, the New Delhi bureau chief for Time magazine, to question him about alleged passport irregularities.

Mr Perry's woes began soon after his article, entitled Asleep at the Wheel, appeared in Time's international edition two weeks ago. It questioned the 77-year-old Mr Vajpayee's fitness to control India's nuclear arsenal at a time of a crisis with Pakistan.

Mr Vajpayee had a weakness for fatty food, it said, took a "three-hour afternoon snooze", and often appeared "shaky and lost". It also said he forgot the names of colleagues, including his foreign minister Jaswant Singh.

Over the past week, pro-government newspapers have launched a thinly disguised campaign of vilification of Mr Perry, and have published his address. Indian home office officials, meanwhile, have accused the journalist of flouting visa restrictions and having two British passports.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has demanded an apology from Time and has hinted that Mr Perry will be thrown out of India unless the magazine gives in.

The last journalist to be kicked out of India was Sir Mark Tully, the former BBC bureau chief, who was expelled from New Delhi in 1975 by India's then-prime minister Indira Gandhi. She later let him come back.

India's rightwing nationalist government has become increasingly intolerant of foreign criticism in recent months, following British and EU condemnation of riots in Gujarat. More than 2,000 Muslims died in the carnage, which was supported and organised by the state's BJP politicians.