BJP rakes up Bofors again to slam Congress

NEW DELHI, Nov 19: The BJP today had to fall back on the Bofors issue yet again to revive its sagging fortunes in the ensuing elections to t...

NEW DELHI, Nov 19: The BJP today had to fall back on the Bofors issue yet again to revive its sagging fortunes in the ensuing elections to the four state assemblies.

With elections less than a week away, the party was forced to pull the issue out from its armoury to hit back at the Congress party and, in particular, its president Sonia Gandhi. “Bofors is a classic example of Congress perfidy,” alleged BJP spokesman M Venkaiah Naidu, “The Swedish arms manufacturer was given the order for fieldguns because there was a Rs 67 crore (at the 1987 exchange rates) cut in the deal for the Congress leadership.”

According to him, bulk of the pay-off was handled by “the Italian crook Ottavio Quattrochi who had been given the most favoured middleman” status because of his intimate proximity to the Congress leadership.

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“The nation’s security,” Naidu alleged, “was compromised to enable the Congress leadership to make money. When it was exposed by the Swiss that Quattrochi was handling this slush money, hewas allowed to sneak out of the country by the then Congress Government.”

The BJP spokesman was, however, at pains to reply why the BJP-led Government had failed to reveal the names of the recipients of the Bofors kickback even after staying in office for about eight months. “You’ll find out soon,” was all he could say.

Asked whether the names would be revealed before the assembly elections, he urged the reporters not to link the two issues.

The BJP, in the meanwhile, continued its tirade against the Congress, holding its leadership guilty of committing heinous capital crimes against the nation during its 45-year reign. “Those guilty of committing these crimes are today being paraded by the party as champions of ethical governance, democratic values and national interest,” he asserted.

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The BJP spokesman reeled out 10 examples to buttress his argument. These included gifting a third of Jammu and Kashmir to Pakistan and internationalising what is purely a domestic issue, demoralising India’sdefence forces in 1962 and in Sri Lanka, murdering democracy to perpetuate dynastic rule and suspending fundamental rights during Emergency, fanning terrorism and colluding with anti-India forces to keep itself in power, promoting underworld dons and criminalising politics and massacring innocent people during the anti-Sikh riots of 1984.

The BJP leader ridiculed attempts being made by the Congress to drive a wedge in the ruling coalition. “On the contrary, we have reasons to believe that the Congress will split after the elections,” he claimed, adding, “After all, it has a bad history of splits.”