Both Houses of Parliament were rocked on Thursday over disclosures made by former Swedish police chief Sten Lindstrom that pay-offs were made in the purchase of Bofors guns during former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s tenure. There were repeated disruptions of proceedings in the Lok Sabha as well as the Rajya Sabha, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) demanding a judicial probe into the matter. The Congress hit out at the BJP for making no headway in the probe during the six years when the National Democratic Alliance was in power.
Senior BJP leader Jaswant Singh, who raised the issue during Zero Hour in the Lok Sabha, said, “Till you don’t remove this thorn, the poison will continue to spread... Whatever is happening in the defence sector on Thursday is because of this episode. It is a saga of continuing corruption. In matters of corruption, there is no closure,” he said, demanding a judicial commission be set up to probe the issue.
CPI(M) leader Basudeb Acharia demanded reopening the Bofors pay-off case, setting up an independent inquiry and extradition of Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi. Acharia said, “What was the cover-up? Who protected Quattrocchi, and what interest did he have? ... We will continue to raise this issue till the people responsible for it were brought to book.”
While the Lok Sabha had to be adjourned for 90 minutes, the Upper House, too, witnessed stormy scenes, with no business transacted till after lunch. When the leader of the Opposition, Arun Jaitley, raised the issue, he did not name any political leader, but repeatedly stressed Quattrocchi had been shielded by powerful people. “The fact is clear. Somebody got the contract and somebody got the kickback... This man (Ottavio Quattrocchi) is very powerful. The entire Indian state appeared helpless... This is a textbook illustration of fraud,” Jaitley said.
Both within Parliament and outside, Bofors kept politicians busy all day. While BJP’s official spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad demanded Congress President and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi reveal what her connections were with Quattrocchi, he absolved Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of the case, as “he was only a bureaucrat at that time”.
Congress fielded its ministers and senior leaders to take on the BJP on the issue. Mani Shankar Aiyar in the Lok Sabha questioned the basis on which Arun Jaitley was sitting in judgment, when he had been Additional Solicitor General who did the paper work in the Bofors investigation.
Congress’s media chairperson Janardan Dwivedi alleged BJP was raking up the issue to mislead the public, with elections round the corner. “The BJP is in a hurry to grab power,” charged Dwivedi. In a spirited defence of the late Rajiv Gandhi, he questioned BJP’s motives in raking up a long-decided issue. “The issue has been dealt with competently by our courts of law and now the revelations of a retired police chief are being considered more credible?”
He hit out at BJP stalwart L K Advani reminding that Advani was the Union home minister for six years.
“Why didn’t he prosecute the guilty then? The Leader of the Opposition on Thursday was the prosecutor at that time and did nothing?” he added.
Samajwadi Party’s Mohan Singh, too, demanded that Quattrocchi be brought back to the country and made to stand trial as an economic offender.
