ELECTION 99
US EDITION
COLUMNISTS
DIARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ELECTIONS
ARCHIVES

Search Rediff

No evidence to show Indian received kickback in Bofors deal, says Chidambaram

Former Union minister and senior Tamil Maanila Congress leader P Chidambaram today said there was no evidence so far to suggest that any Indian politician had received kickbacks in the Bofors gun deal.

The inclusion of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi as an accused in the Bofors chargesheet was not justified in law, he said while addressing reporters at the party headquarters in Madras.

Chidambaram said the only case the investigating agency could have made was to mention Gandhi's name while narrating the case history for any involvement in the conspiracy and not as an accused in column two of the chargesheet. Gandhi was not even alive to defend the charges of conspiracy, Chidambaram, who had been a minister in the then Rajiv Gandhi government, said.

Union minister Arun Jaitley drawing parallels with other dead persons included in the chargesheet was unfair, he added. Asked about the compulsion of former external affairs minister Madhavsinh Solanki to ask Swiss authorities to go slow on the investigation, Chidambaram said: "I don't know. Ask him (Solanki) on the allegations of a massive cover=up."

Chidambaram, who is a senior Supreme Court lawyer, said there was no mention of any cover-up in the Bofors chargesheet.

UNI

Tell us what you think of this report