BJP Future - 4

[Guest]

<!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' /><!--endemo--> Look what Arun Singh said, say BJP and Left
Express News Service
Posted online: Monday, July 31, 2006 at 0000 hrs Print Email
BOFORS BOOMS AGAIN: Cong dismisses Rajiv minister’s claim, says case was ‘fabricated’

NEW DELHI, JULY 30:The revelation by Arun Singh, Minister of State for Defence in Rajiv Gandhi’s Cabinet, that “somebody” had been paid off in the Bofors gun deal and that it was the job of the executive—and not Parliament or CBI or the judiciary—to track down the culprits was endorsed today by both the BJP and the Left who said it reinforced their suspicions.

A political canon‘All efforts being made to locate Quattrochi’

Responding to Singh’s remarks made in an interview (FULL TEXT)to Shekhar Gupta, Editor-in-Chief of The Indian Express on NDTV’s Walk the Talk programme, BJP’ Ravi Shankar Prasad said “right from day one, the Congress government had been trying to shield” all those connected to the Bofors deal.

CPI MP Gurudas Dasgupta, who leads the party in Parliament, said, “We should find out the beneficiary in the payout of commissions by the Swedish company. It is unfortunate that a proper inquiry was never done in the case.”

Dasgupta said there was “always” an air of suspicion in large Defence purchases in India because there was “no transparent mode” of transaction. “What is needed is a proper system for utilization of funds in Defence deals,” he said.

The Congress, however, countered the accusations, with party spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan saying the Congress had always maintained that the Bofors scam was a “fabricated case” and that the party position had been vindicated by the Supreme Court.

The BJP, however, said that the Ottavio Quattrocchi link in the Bofors deal was still very important and needed to be probed. “The way in which the Quattrocchi issue was handled and the speed with which his (London bank) accounts were defrozen need to be investigated,” Prasad said, adding Arun Singh’s remarks reinforced the impression that the ‘Q’ factor would become alive again.

Prasad said the “elusive beneficiary” had gone out of bounds because of the “indulgence” of the Indian government but claimed no such indulgence had been shown to him during the NDA regime.

The Congress brushed aside the charges. Natarajan said that “for the last 15 years” non-Congress governments had come to power “using the Bofors card” but none had been able to produce any evidence.
editor@expressindia.com