Indian authorities wanted President Pranab Mukherjee’s Bofors remark retracted, says Swedish paper

In an interview given to the newspaper ahead of the President’s state visit to Sweden, Pranab Mukherjee had said that no Indian court had established the Bofors scam which had severely dented the image of former PM Rajiv Gandhi in the 1980s.

“The so-called scandal which you talk of, yes, in the media, it was there… There was a media trial. But I’m afraid, let us not be too much carried (away) by publicity,” he was quoted as saying by the paper.

Asked if it was a media scandal, the President was reported to have said: “I do not know. I’m not describing it, you’re putting that word. Don’t put that word. What I am saying is that in media it was publicised. But up to now, no Indian court has given any decisive verdict about the alleged scandal.”

Dagens Nyheter, in a report on its website along with a six-minute video clip of the interview, quoted its editor-in-chief today saying that the President became engaged and upset when the Bofors scam was mentioned during the interview.

”I told the Ambassador that we couldn’t accept her demands. The president became engaged and was upset when Bofors was mentioned during a question regarding how we can avoid corruption today. Of course we had to tell our readers about his reaction”, says Peter Wolodarski.

”The reactions in Indian media show that his answers are of public interest, even more so in India than in Sweden.”

Wolodarski added that he found the Ambassador’s remarks ‘regretful.’

”I find the Ambassador’s reaction regretful. It is surprising that someone representing the world’s largest democracies is trying to micromanage which questions we should ask a head of state, and which answers should be published,” he is quoted saying in the report.