Cong, BJP read VP’s book and how

Life seems to have turned full circle for V.P. Singh. He fell out with the late Rajiv Gandhi, left the Congress in 1986 and became the prime minister in 1989 with the support of the BJP.

Life seems to have turned full circle for V.P. Singh. He fell out with the late Rajiv Gandhi, left the Congress in 1986 and became the prime minister in 1989 with the support of the BJP. Today, he appears to have mended his fences with the Congress, including its president Sonia Gandhi, and become a bitter critic of the BJP.

The subtle rapprochement with the Congress and a growing distance from the BJP, which supported V.P. Singh’s government from outside become obvious by the reactions of the two parties over his memoirs Manzil Se Zyaada Safar.

V.P. Singh has reportedly said in his book that former prime minister A.B. Vajpayee wanted to quit the BJP and Sonia Gandhi did not accept the prime minister’s post in 2004 for fear of life. BJP dismissed the reference to Vajpayee as ‘‘fiction,’’ while the Congress said Singh did not exactly say that about its party president.

Ravi Shankar Prasad of BJP said ‘‘V.P. Singh’s politics of probity suffers from serious double standards. I spoke to Jaswant Singh, who is said to have told V.P. Singh that Vajpayee wanted to quit BJP, and Jaswant Singh told me these are found in fictions, not in memoirs.’’

He said, ‘‘He talks of probity and he fought with Rajiv Gandhi on HDW submarines, there is no comment by him on the recent submarine deal. He fought for Bofors which was a Rs 60-crore scam, but now, he doesn’t talk about fodder scam, which accounts for Rs 2000 crore.’’

Congress, on its part, stopped just short of criticising the reference in the book on Sonia Gandhi. Spokesperson Rajiv Shukla recalled that ‘‘after the death of her husband and former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi used to move with only one personal security officer. Therefore, it is not correct to say that she declined prime ministership merely due to security reasons.’’

Shukla said he himself had gone through the book in which the author had said Sonia did not accept the post as she did not want to give political issue to BJP and her detractors on the issue of foreign issue.

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He also dismissed BJP allegations that former prime minister V.P. Singh was ‘‘batting’’ for the party saying they level charges when the situation does not suit them. ‘‘They have forgotten V.P. Singh whom they supported as prime minister. Today they (BJP) are criticising him as he does not suit their scheme of things.’’

‘Cong dissuaded Bofors from revealing names’

NEW DELHI: Bofors had expressed readiness to disclose the names of middle-men who had allegedly received kickbacks in the artillery gun deal but pulled out under Congress pressure, former prime minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh has said. In his book, he has said his government had ‘‘pressurised’’ Bofors officials to reveal the names of the persons who had received kickbacks in the Rs 64-crore gun deal. He claimed that Bofors company had sent its representatives to Delhi to reveal the names of those who allegedly received bribes but returned after Congress ‘‘sources’’ persuaded them against the move contending that the National Front government he was heading ‘‘would not last long.’’ — PTI