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A pact of silence

George Iype in New Delhi

February 1998. The country was facing a mid-term election after the Congress had withdrawn support to the United Front government headed by Inder Kumar Gujral. After spending more than six years mourning her husband Rajiv's untimely death, Sonia Gandhi plunged into full-time politics and began addressing Congress election rallies.

Her unexpected entry rattled the Bharatiya Janata Party whose campaign was being led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The party, which was coasting along till then, feared the new Congress entrant could mar its electoral prospects.

Thus, on February 9, then BJP president Lal Kishenchand Advani took time off his election campaign schedule to address an unusual press conference on Bofors. He claimed that if elected to power, the BJP would establish "the true beneficiary" of the Bofors payoffs.

Advani said the Congress had decided to pull the Gujral government down as it was frightened that an impending Bofors revelation would destroy the party.

'Independent observers know that the fall of the United Front regime became inevitable on November 7, 1997, when the CBI sent a letter rogatory to the Channel Islands. The investigators sought the identity of the account-holder who had received money transferred from Ottavio Quattrocchi's Swiss account. Once this information was revealed, the identity of the Bofors payoffs would have been known. The Congress could not afford such a revelation,' Advani said.

Sonia, instead of keeping quiet on Advani's diatribe, challenged any government to release the secret Bofors papers and said the Congress was ready to face the heat.

Elections over, Vajpayee was sworn in as the prime minister on March 19. Two days later, he vowed his government would do everything to release the Bofors documents and punish the guilty.

Since then, however, it has been one long year of silence from both Vajpayee and Sonia.

So far the BJP establishment has kept mum about "the true beneficiary" of the Bofors payoff. What's more, rarely has any coalition partner or BJP politician demanded from Prime Minister Vajpayee a report card on the progress on the letter rogatory sent to the Channel Islands.

One BJP politician discloses that there has "certainly been an understanding between Vajpayee and Sonia on Bofors." "Vajpayee did not want to disturb Sonia as long as the Congress did not unnecessarily harass the government," he says.

Not many believe this claim fully. But the Hinduja angle of the sensational case has forced sections of the Congress and the BJP to believe there has been some understanding between them.

These politicians point out that the Hinduja brothers with their knack for making deals have so far managed to bring about "a true understanding between the Congress president and the prime minister".

While the Hinduja-Vajpayee connection is well known, the NRI group is said to wield enormous clout at 10, Janpath too.

A pact of silence suits the Hindujas as well since they too are accused of taking part in India's most controversial defence deal.

Government looks to Bofors to counter Congress onslaught

Bofors: The Smoking Gun

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