Bofors storm rocks parliament: Opposition demands fresh probe

Almost a quarter of a century after it surfaced the Bofors payoff scandal created a storm yesterday disrupting both the Houses of the parliament as the opposition vociferously demanded a fresh probe into the deal that has long haunted the Congress The opposition members demanded the government explain how the main accused Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi was given a safe passage to leave the country in 1993 to avoid arrest six years after the scandal surfaced in 1987 Speaking outside the House BJP and Left leaders demanded a fresh probe and initiation of process for Quattrocchirsquos extradition While BJPrsquos Jaswant Singh and Arun Jaitley did not take any names party general secretary and spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad attacked Congress president Sonia Gandhi on the issue In Lok Sabha Jaswant Singh made a passionate appeal for a fresh inquiry and slammed the government for not doing enough to dig the truth behind the alleged scandalous purchase of the 155mm howitzers in 1986 ldquoThe storm over Bofors has not slowed down the roar of the gun is still being heard It is a saga of continuing corruption I appeal to the government to recognise thatrdquo he said ldquoFor the sake of cleansing this poison from our system please appoint a judicial commission to probe this Do it otherwise we will continue to suffer painrdquo he added As Sonia Gandhi listened with rapt attention Singh said ldquoI feel no delight to raise this issue It was a mistake and we are still paying for itrdquo He admitted he ldquofailed to extradite Quattrocchirdquo when he was external affairs minister ldquoYou are blaming us But our failure cannot be your success Whatever the reasons we want to know why Quattrocchi was taken out of the country by the government How did this happen Why was Quattrocchirsquos red corner notice withdrawn in the Bofors caserdquo he questioned In the Rajya Sabha Jaitley said after spending ldquo25 years trying to unearth the truthrdquo the government was ldquounable to nail the culprits despite having conclusive evidencesrdquo Referring to Quattrocchi as ldquoa gentleman whose name started with Qrdquo he said the Italian had escaped because of ldquoa friendly government and incapable probing agenciesrdquo Prasad said the issue was directly related to Sonia Gandhirsquos reputation ldquoI understand the compulsion and limits of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh he was just a civil servant when the scam took place Sonia Gandhi ji the decision in this case will be the benchmark by which the nation will judge yourdquo Prasad said Basudeb Acharia of the CPIM also demanded a fresh probe and said the issue would continue to haunt India till Quattrocchi was brought to justice Congressrsquo Sanjay Nirupam strongly objected to the opposition raising the issue and asked the BJP to ldquofirst apologise to the nation for tarnishing the image of the late Rajiv Gandhirdquo for naming him in the scandal all these years The functioning of parliament is likely to be peaceful today with the main opposition BJP deciding not to take up the issue The issue of Bofors scam rose to haunt the Congressled government again as former Swedish police chief Sten Lindstrom the original whistleblower disclosed that the late Rajiv Gandhi ldquowatched the massive coveruprdquo and the guilty party Quattrocchi got away mdashu00a0