| Published on 05-03-2007 In National | | Viewed 1422 times | | The time has come for Sonia to talk if she wants the Bofors ghost to be exorcised |
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| Written by
Girish Nikam | 
For 20 years India has been haunted by a ghost, which refuses to be exorcised! The Bofors ghost has survived nine governments, eight prime ministers, innumerable hearings from the lowest court in the country to the highest, and an array of actors in the drama, some of who are dead and gone. It continues to periodically occupy our media and the mind space as politicians get excited or depressed, depending on which side they are.
Through it all, the Italian businessman and middleman in the Bofors deal, and one of the main accused in the scandal, Ottavio Quattrocchi has serenely moved from middle age to a senior citizen, and continues to evade the sometimes enthusiastic, sometimes conniving, sometimes disinterested CBI.
Meanwhile, many of the leading politicians who made it regularly to the front pages exposing the scandal and pursuing it with vigour, are now on the other side of the fence, and are forced into silence. People like former Prime Minister V.P.Singh who made the famous statement during the 1989 Lok Sabha election campaign that he had the proof in his pocket, now refuses to comment about it. Some of his then colleagues are in the Union Cabinet. Ram Jethmalani, who gave shivers to then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by asking ten questions a day on Bofors in the Indian Express, is also on the Congress side.
The BJP, which has periodically used the issue to gain some political mileage, could do nothing to get Quattrocchi extradited in all its six and half years in power. In fact the Government watched mutely as the Hinduja brothers, also in the list of accused for facilitating and enjoying some of the kickbacks from the Bofors gun deal, were declared innocent in the Delhi High court.
No political party on either side of the fence has acquitted itself honourably, for anyone to claim they are above suspicion. Ironically the scandal has been a series of cover-ups right from the time Rajiv Gandhi declared on the floor of the House in the summer of 1987 that neither he nor any member of his family were involved. The subsequent Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) headed by B.Shankaranand, a senior MP from Karnataka did what was mandated to it. Cover up.
The battles however continued to be fought in courts, and finally Rajiv Gandhi was declared posthumously innocent. Yet why does the ghost refuse to go away?
Because there are still too many gaps which need to be filled? Because it is a fact that kickbacks were paid and Quattrocchi received it? Because---- well there are any number of questions which remain unanswered. But it is not because of all these unanswered questions that the scandal periodically pops up on our radar. It is because there is a certain Sonia Gandhi, an Italian born woman, whose husband was the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. And Quattrocchi and his family happened to be very close to them.
There is evidence with the CBI about how many visits Quattrocchi and his family made to the Race Course residence of the Gandhis during the period when Rajiv was the Prime Minister.
Even if we give the benefit of doubt to Rajiv and his wife that they were not part of the conspiracy to get the kickbacks for the Bofors gun deal and we believe that the smart Italian businessman used his proximity to profit himself, the silence of the lady at 10, Janpath is deafening. In fact it is her silence, which is responsible for the scandal to keep surfacing again and again.
One recalls the first instance when she had to answer this question at her maiden press conference in August 1999, when she as the President of the Congress was releasing the party manifesto. This columnist was the one who asked her what was the relationship she and her family had with Quattrocchi. A fuming, blinking and uncomfortable Sonia, a far cry from her confident self today, reacted, "where is the proof, where is the proof?" It may be noted that the question had nothing to do with Quattrocchi's involvement in Bofors!
Ever since that monsoon of 1999, She has kept mum on the issue as Quattrocchi evaded the Indian authorities' attempt to get him extradited from Malaysia and the Interpol red corner notice, until he was detained last month in Argentina. Meanwhile the Indian Government working under her close scrutiny even went out of its way to get his Rs.21 crore stashed away in two London banks, and suspected to be the Bofors kickbacks, de-freezed.
Yet the lady continues to adopt a strategy of silence. Now how can she or her party blame anyone if she does not come out and say whatever she has to, in her defence. How and why should she and her party believe, despite the fatigue, which the scandal evokes among people, that the country should forget about it and absolve her as the courts have ruled that her husband is innocent--- especially in view of the continuing suspicion that Quattrocchi enjoys her patronage.
Fact is that Quattrocchi and Bofors scandal will not be eliminated from public memory, and should not be until the Italian is brought to book. Whether he can or not is another matter, considering the monumental legal and diplomatic hassles involved in doing so.
But at the same time it is also important that we hear from the lady what she has to say about the entire scandal and clear the suspicion that she continues to patronize the Italian businessman. Silence is no solution and as long as she maintains it, she can be assured that the ghost will continue to haunt not just her but her progeny too.
Above all, this country has a right, and as the Chairperson of the ruling coalition at the Centre, Sonia has a duty to tell the people where she stands. That is the least we can expect from a person who enthusiastically campaigned for the Right to Information Act. Nation will then decide after it hears from her, if the ghost can be exorcised at least as far as her family is concerned. The time has come for her to talk.
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