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Bofors resurrected, Congress on mat over Quattrochchi again
Wednesday April 25, 2012 06:18:28 PM,
IANS
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New Delhi: The Bofors ghost returned to haunt the Congress Wednesday with former
Swedish police chief Sten Lindstrom giving a clean chit to the
late Rajiv Gandhi in the payoff scandal but also saying that he
just "watched the massive cover-up" and the guilty, Italian
Ottavio Quattrochchi, got away.
The sensational disclosures by the original whistleblower of the
bribery scam of the late 1980s gave fresh ammunition to the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Left with both demanding an
explanation from the government. The BJP also decided to pin the
government down in parliament.
Then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and several others were accused
of receiving kickbacks from Bofors AB for winning a bid to supply
India 155 mm field howitzers. The Rs.64 crore (approx $12 million)
scandal, bigger than any that India had seen before, led to the
defeat of the Congress in the November 1989 elections.
On Wednesday, the issue was resurrected.
In an interview to website thehoot.org, Lindstrom said there was
no evidence to show that Gandhi had taken a bribe in the Rs.1,500
crore ($285 million) gun deal.
"But he watched the massive cover-up in India and Sweden and did
nothing. Many Indian institutions were tarred, innocent people
were punished while the guilty got away," he said.
The evidence against Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrochchi "was
conclusive", he said. "Nobody in Sweden or Switzerland was allowed
to interrogate him."
Lindstrom also said that the case against actor and then Congress
MP Amitabh Bachchan and his family was planted in Swedish
newspaper Dagens Nyheter by Indian investigators.
In another damning revelation, Lindstrom said they had barely met
Indian investigators. "Can you imagine a situation where no one
from India met the real investigators of the gun deal?" he asked.
The interview gave the opposition the leverage it was looking for
against the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance regime.
The BJP again alleged that Quattrochchi was close to the Gandhi
family and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and sought the
government's apology for letting him go free.
"The entire government of late Rajiv Gandhi was out to secure
Ottavio Quattrochchi. What was his link with the government and
with the Gandhi family that the entire government was there to
bail him out... it is a serious matter," said BJP leader Ravi
Shankar Prasad.
"The role of Quattrochchi should be probed by an independent
agency, and so should be the role of the CBI officials who said
there was no evidence against him," said Prasad.
The Communist Party of India (CPI) agreed.
"The government and the CBI cannot ignore this revelation. They
have to come forward with a response on how Quattrochchi was
allowed or could go scot-free or could have a safe passage from
India," said CPI leader D. Raja.
The Congress retorted that parties who had misled the nation on
the issue should apologise instead.
Accusing the opposition of making "wild allegations" against
Gandhi, union Law Minister Salman Khurshid said: "It is a matter
of regret that without having any proof, such serious charges were
levelled. The same people are not ready to feel sorry even today.
They should apologise before the public."
He added that it was a closed case and there was no need to reopen
it.
The Bachchans, Bollywood's first family, said they had been
vindicated.
"We knew the truth 25 years back but justice takes its own time
and our stand has been vindicated," said Rajya Sabha member Jaya
Bachchan.
Her husband, megastar Amitabh, who was an MP at the time said the
accusations had led to years of "anguish of petulant blame".
"No one shall be able to understand or even remotely fathom, the
hours and days and months and years of the anguish of petulant
blame, that I had to go through. But will it really interest
another? No it shall not," Amitabh, who was MP at the time, wrote
on his blog bigb.bigadda.com.
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