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Journalism of Courage
JODHPUR, Feb 10: Taking the Bofors issue to the Congress camp, the BJP tonight demanded that Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi be brought to India and interrogated to pursue the investigations into the gun deal pay-off case.
“Quattrocchi should be brought to India. Whatever comes out of his interrogation should be further investigated,” BJP leader Atal Behari Vajpayee told newsmen at Jodhpur airport.
Asked whether Sonia Gandhi should also be questioned in the case because of her alleged links with Quattrocchi, he said “I want to leave this entire matter to the CBI and its investigating team.”
“The United Front Government had adopted a lackadaisical attitude towards bringing Quattrocchi back. He should be brought back and questioned,” Vajpayee said after addressing a massive rally at Jodhpur stadium.
Reacting to Sonia raising the Bofors issue in her poll campaign, he said “it is wrong to raise the issue and then remain silent on it.”
Stating that culprits of all scams would be broughtto book if BJP came to power, Vajpayee said, “for the future, we will enact the Lokpal Bill and bring all public servants including the Prime Minister into its ambit.”“We will also consider setting up special courts to deal with corruption cases,” he said.
Vajpayee also discounted fears that the entry of Sonia Gandhi had alarmed the BJP and expressed confidence that his party would secure a majority along with its allies.
The BJP leader also exhorted the people to teach the Congress a lesson by bringing the BJP to power at the Centre. A large gathering waited patiently for several hours to hear Vajpayee in what has been traditionally a Congress bastion. His address mostly stressed on attacking the Congress for “precipitating” the coming elections, and the “spectre of economic crisis which loomed large over the country”.
Earlier, at a well-attended rally in Banswara, the BJP leader asserted that the Congress withdrew support to the Gujral Government because it was scared that the names of thebeneficaries of the payoffs would be disclosed.
“The Jain Commission was just a timely pretext, infact the Congress wanted to come to power itself but its calculations failed,” he said.Vajpayee focussed his address on what he dramatically termed “48 years of misrule by the Congress.” He likened the Congress to a sinking ship from where anyone with some sense was leaving to join the BJP or other parties. “Thanks to the long years of Congress misrule, 40 per cent of the people in the country were still below the poverty line while 50 per cent were illiterate,” he claimed.
Keeping in mind the sensibilities of his largely tribal audience, the BJP leader dwelt at length on local issues such as the absence of a railhead in Banswara and the need to further revamp the public distribution system. The crowd broke into a thunderous applause amidst loud shouts of “Jai Shri Ram” when the BJP leader promised the commissioning of a rail link if voted to power.
