Muted boom

REGIONAL ROUNDUP

Given how the case has been dragging on without closure, and has taken down a prime minister as well, it's hardly surprising that the reaction to the Ottavio Quattrocchi episode where the UPA government allowed his UK bank accounts to be unfrozen has been mixed. While the Hindi language press has milked the unfreezing of the Bofors accused's account for what it was worth (making headlines for three consecutive day in Dainik Bhaskar), the Marathi press has been remarkably cool to it. Indeed, even within the opposition BJP, the reaction has been remarkably muted with just party general secretary Arun Jaitley raising the issue and party president Rajnath Singh not participating in the debate "" of course, this could also have to do with the BJP's own power politics.

In north India, Dainik Bhaskar even had a piece on the edit page, and had a cartoon along with one day's lead story that said it all. It had a minister's PA holding the phone and telling his boss that some Quattrocchi was on the phone saying his bank account is now working and how much money should he transfer to yours. A side story, along one of the day's lead story detailed how the CBI had changed its stance and was now saying it was behind the defreezing of Quattrocchi's account and not the law ministry "" law minister Hans Raj Bhardwaj, an old faithful of the Gandhi family has been widely credited with the move.

The three Kannada newspapers "" Kannada Prabha, Vijaya Karnataka and Praja Vani "" went all out in covering the revival of the Bofors controversy through defreezing of the accounts of Quattrocchi. Kannada Prabha once again led the way in highlighting the alleged hand of the Congress in this move, which was later owned up by the CBI. A detailed chronology was followed by caustic remarks in the editorial stating how the Gandhi family made sure that Quattrocchi got his money back and apparently the law minister is being made the scapegoat in this controversy. Reporting this development as the lead story for two consecutive days, Praja Vani  and Vijaya Karnataka supported their front page lead stories with detailed analysis in the Nation pages and urged that the truth in the Bofors issue should once for all be found out. Kannada Prabha said that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should resign and Sonia Gandhi should stop interfering in the nation's politics.

Most of the mainstream Marathi press did not give too much of importance to the ongoing controversy. While Sakal and Loksatta carried only two stories on the front page ever since the controversy broke out, Maharashtra Times did not carry a single story on the front page related to the controversy. The only editorial comment, by Loksatta, was in the form of the Delhi Diary written by the paper's Delhi correspondent. However, Shiv Sena mouthpiece Samna hit out at Congress president Sonia Gandhi in its editorial.

The controversy over UPA allowing the defreezing of Quattrochi's accounts did not hit the first page of Dinamalar, the Tamil daily. But the issue was given due importance in its inside pages.