Bofors scam row: BJP will expose Congress completely, says Prasad

New Delhi, Apr 25 (ANI): Amid fresh allegations that former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi may have toned down the probe to protect Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi in the Bofors scam, senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Ravi Shankar Prasad on Wednesday charged the ruling Congress Party of being deep rooted in corruption, and said that his party will expose them completely.

"What was the link of Ottavio Quattrocchi to the powers that deal in India including the Gandhi family. The entire government of the day was there to bail him out, it is a serious matter. Today also, the news has come of a kickback in a helicopter deal. This government has sunk into deep corruption from telecom scam, commonwealth, to Adarsh (Housing Scam) back to Bofors now the helicopter deal," said Prasad.

"People of the country really are almost coming to a breaking point as far as the corruption level of this government is concerned. The BJP will be exposing this government inside and outside the parliament because corruption level has crossed all limits," he added.

Meanwhile, another BJP leader Jaswant Singh, echoing similar sentiments, said the Congress Party has always tried to protect all those, who are involved in the scam.

He also said that it was a conspiracy designed by the Congress Party to protect Quattrocchi.

"Effort was made not only to safe Quattrocchi, but a conspiracy was hatched. This is not a new thing that has emerged today, to send Quattrocchi quietly from New Delhi and later not try for his extradition when he was arrested in Brazil," said Singh.

"The government through federal police asked the court to suspend all the cases that were running against him in India and to withdraw red corner notice issued against Quattrocchi. After all these things if you will ask that whether this was a conspiracy, then I am sorry to say that what kind of question was that," he added.

In an interview that appears on the website hoot.org, former Swedish police chief Sten Lindstrom has owned up to being the person (Sweden's Deep Throat) who leaked over 350 documents to Indian journalist Chitra Subramanian, who broke the story.

Lindstrom has revealed that there was no evidence to suggest that former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had taken bribe in the Bofors deal.

However, he did not seem to have done much to prevent the cover up that followed in both India and Sweden to protect main accused Ottavio Quattrocchi, against whom, says Lindstrom, there was conclusive evidence.

Lindstrom also gives a clean chit to Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan and his family, saying that the story against them was planted in Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter by Indian investigators.

"They gave me a list of names to pursue, including the name of Amitabh Bachchan... During that trip to Sweden, the Indian investigators planted the Bachchan angle on DN," he says.

The Bofors case dates back to 1986, when Swiss arms manufacturer Bofors landed a 15 billion dollar contract to supply Howitzer Guns to India. A year later, Swiss media began reporting that the company had paid massive kickbacks to Indian politicians and defence officials. (ANI)