Under fire, George gets the ‘joke’

Doing a complete volte face, former defence minister George Fernandes said he had been misinterpreted in a recent television interview.

Doing a complete volte face, former defence minister George Fernandes said he had been misinterpreted in a recent television interview. “Former prime Minister Atlas Bihari Vajpayee’s ‘hands-off Bofors’ remarks had been made in jest,” he said. Trying to prove the righteousness of the NDA government, he said the Bofors pay-off case had begun during the previous regime.

Fernandes explained that the good performance of the Bofors gun in the Kargil war had prompted him to meet Vajpayee to discuss issues related to its purchase. “He did ask me not to rake up the issue… But it was all said in

a very light-hearted manner. And you know about Atalji… He does make such remarks,” Fernandes said.

The former defence minister who is also the NDA convener had made these comments in Dharamshala on Saturday in an interview given to a news channel. Back in the Capital today, he said while he had not seen any of the documents related to the Bofors deal, he knew that Vajpayee and the then Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani were serious about the probe.

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Fernandes, who had been a key element in the NDA government and was involved in decision making at the highest level, claimed he had nothing to do with the Bofors investigations and these matters were taken care of by the CBI, the bureaucrats and the Army. He said the matter was being pursued by the CBI and the investigating agency did not take its cues from him.

His clarifications came just in time for the BJP to decide that no damage control was required now. Party spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad, who had been a minister in the Vajpayee government said: “Since Mr Fernandes has clarified the remarks, the BJP treats the matter as closed.”

In fact, the BJP blamed the ruling party for fanning “non-issues” and diverting attention from the Gandhi family that had come under the scanner after the arrest of Ottavio Quattrocchi. “George has already said he was misquoted by the media. By deviating from the real issue (Bofors) and harping on trivial matters of-who-said-what-to-whom, the Congress is trying to divert attention from the Gandhi family’s misdeeds,” BJP leader Vijay Kumar Malhotra alleged.

Despite the clarifications, questions hung large over the timing of Fernandes’ remarks coming as they do just before the Uttar Pradesh elections, and his isolation within his own party.