BJP slams Aiyar for 'personal attack' on Jaitley

New Delhi, Apr 26 (ANI): The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday charged Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar of provoking the House through his personal attack on Arun Jaitley during the debate on the Bofors revelations.

BJP leader Prakash Javadekar claimed that Arun Jaitley was 'statesman like' in his speech during the debate and never mentioned the Congress or Rajiv Gandhi. He only said: "the truth has still not come to the fore and the guilty are not punished.

Instead of responding in a 'civilian' manner, Mani Shankar Aiyar made a personal attack. "The House was deliberately provoked by Mani Shankar Aiyar," he added.

During the debate on Bofors revelations earlier in the day in the Rajya Sabha, Mani Shankar Aiyar said Leader of the Opposition, Arun Jaitley, was the additional solicitor general who had done paper work in the Bofors investigation case.

There was uproar in both Houses of Parliament today, as the opposition hit out at the government and demanded an explanation over former Swedish police chief Sten Lindstrom's revelations on the Bofors scandal.

Both the ruling Congress Party and the opposition BJP put the blame on each other for saving Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi in the Bofors-India gun deal.

In an interview that has appeared 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, said Lindstrom, there was conclusive evidence.

Lindstrom also gave 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)