Bofors is back to haunt Sonia The Afternoon | Column | Jan 2011 Print The ghost of Bofors could not have returned more unexpectedly and at a more inauspicious time for Sonia Gandhi and her son. Even had it not returned to make more trouble for the Gandhis there was trouble already in the form of whispers on Delhis political grapevine about the familys waning charisma and the seeming inability of the Congress Partys heir apparent to show that he has the mettle and the grit to be a real leader. The whisperers talk of how absent he has been since the dismal results from Bihar and how his favorite ministers in Dr.Manmohan Singhs cabinet have been behaving like loose canons. People ask why Digvijay Singh should be allowed to continue his association with a book tour for a book that charges the RSSwith organizing the attack on Mumbai. The book 26/11: RSS Ki Saazish is written by a Muslim journalist who could win an award for being a spectacularly inventive conspiracy theorist. His theory is that Zionists in alliance with the CIA and the RSS organized the attack on Mumbai in November 2008 so that it would give the man excuse to invade more Muslim countries. Ludicrous theory It is a ludicrous theory and the book would have been ignored if it did not have the full support of Digvijay Singh. He has gone out of his way to tour with the author but there seems to be nobody there to stop him even though the Congress Party and the Home Minister are fully aware that the attack on Mumbai was done by Pakistani terrorists who had clear links to the ISI. So when a senior Congress leader spends his time supporting a book that absolves Pakistan from all blame it causes puzzlement and concern. In foggy, wintry Delhi the corridors of power buzz with their own conspiracy theories about why he is not being stopped and the theory that pervades over the others is that this is simply because he is Rahul Gandhis friend, philosopher and guide. There are other ministers who defy the Prime Minister every chance they get and again the theory is that this is because they take their orders from the top. Nobody can verify the truth of any of these theories or rumours because Rahul, like his mother, remain regally aloof from ordinary members of the Congress Party who have been considerably disheartened by the Bihar results and the general stink of corruption that hangs over the government. Into this atmosphere of despondency and gloom has reappeared the Bofors ghost and this time not at the behest of the opposition parties but as a result of an Income-tax appellate tribunal that has demanded that Win Chadhas son pay taxes on the illicit commissions his father made from Bofors. According to the tribunal, Chadha made Rs.52 crore in kickbacks and another Rs.9 crore were made by Sonia Gandhis ex-best friend, Ottavio Quattrocchi. The tribunal has traced the shady companies through which the money passed and names like AE Services and Colbar have resurfaced. Arun Shourie who, as editor of The Indian Express in the eighties, conducted his own investigation into the Bofors deal pointed out last week that both the Express and The Hindu came up with these names long ago and if the CBI (Central Bureau of Intelligence) had wanted to catch anyone they could easily have. Instead, on instructions from the top the CBI pronounced that there was no case against Quattrocchi (Chadha is dead) and as a result of this clean chit given in court Quattrocchi was able to get his money. One of the last acts of Dr.Manmohan Singhs first government was to unfreeze bank accounts in London in which some of the alleged bribe money was stashed. Quattrocchis son, Massimo, when questioned about this by a television channel retorted arrogantly last week that he was only 14 years old when the Bofors scandal burst upon Rajiv Gandhis government so he is not answerable. He added that the Bofors matter was settled long ago in the courts and should not even be talked about now but the problem is that it continues to be talked about because it was the first time that a corruption scandal involved an Indian prime ministers own family. No matter how much Congress Party spokesmen deny the Gandhi familys association with the Quattrocchis everyone in Delhi knows how close the friendship was. They went on holidays together, the Quattrocc his had unlimited access to the Prime Ministers house and there would have been no reason for Ottavio Quattrocchi to be paid a bribe by Bofors if he had not been able to render services on account of his close friendship with the Gandhi family. Trivialize the investigation There are those who assert that in view of the huge sums involved in more recent scandals, Bofors seems almost insignificant with its Rs.64 crore that were allegedly taken in bribes. But, the importance of Bofors remains because instead of a serious investigation into where the money went the investigative agencies of the Government of India went out of their way to blur the details and trivialize the investigation. So for instance, according to Shourie, the reason why Quattrocchi could not be extradited from Argentina, where he was detained as a result of an Interpol notice, was allegedly because Indian officials could not find a Spanish translator. The truth is that nobody ever seriously tried to bring closure to the Bofors scandal which is why its ghost continues to haunt the Gandhi family. The truth is that because the governments investigative agencies were deliberately subverted for political purposes they continue to fail in bringing crooks to book. This has led to the unfortunate conviction in the minds of ordinary Indians that all politicians are corrupt and because of this there will never be any reduction in levels of corruption in public life. In the spate of corruption scandals that we saw in the last year of 2010, the Gandhi family remained unscathed enough for Sonia Gandhi to talk loftily of our shrinking moral universe. She must regret those fine words now that the ghost of Bofors is back to haunt her. She may have forgotten that the Quattrocchis were once her closest friends in Delhi but nobody else has. tavleensingh/article_detail.php?aid=275
Posted on: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 23:20:16 +0000
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