Having failed to deliver on all development fronts, PM Modi has now adopted a new technique for campaigning in his election rallies by attacking former PM Rajiv Gandhi. In a rally in Uttar Pradesh on 4th May, PM attacked Congress President Rahul Gandhi and said, “Your father was termed ‘Mr Clean’ by his courtiers, but his life ended as ‘Bhrastachari number 1′ (corrupt number 1)”. He made the comment referring to the alleged Bofors scam which led to the fall of Rajiv Gandhi government in 1989. Here’s the truth behind the same.
PM Modi has kept his record of blatantly lying, misquoting facts & figures, and wrongly representating historical facts. Let’s look at the facts regarding the Bofors case. In 1986, India signed a deal with the Swedish arms manufacturer AB Bofors for supply of 400 155mm Howitzer guns. The deal was worth Rs. 1,437 crore without any middleman involved, insisted on by Rajiv Gandhi himself. When a Swedish radio channel aired that bribes were paid to win the contract, Rajiv Gandhi himself ordered an investigation into the same. After the fall of his government in 1989, VP Singh sent a three-member team to Sweden to investigate which included current Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. Eight months into the investigation in Sweden, the team failed to find even an iota of evidence to prove these allegations.
In 1999, the Vajpayee government ordered a CBI probe to investigate the deal and in 2004, Justice JD Kapoor exonerated Rajiv Gandhi & public servant SK Bhatnagar of all corruption charges and said, “So far as the public servants Rajiv Gandhi and SK Bhatnagar are concerned, 16 long years of investigation by…the CBI could not unearth a scintilla of evidence against them for having accepted bribe/illegal gratification in awarding the contract in favour of AB Bofors..” A year later, the Supreme Court upheld the verdict and also cleared the Hinduja brothers of all charges citing the evidence as “useless and dubious material”.
Recently the CBI filed a plea in the Supreme Court against the judgement which cleared everyone of all charges of corruption. The plea was rejected by the Supreme Court citing a 13-year delay in the case. Time and again BJP and its claims on Bofors have been proven wrong but to hide their own failures this is the last straw they hold on to.
Be First to Comment