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Onkar Singh in New Delhi
Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy, who had exposed the TANSI land deals scandal involving All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief J Jayalalitha, denied on Wednesday that he had timed his allegations against Congress president Sonia Gandhi to ease the pressure on the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.
The Congress had been stalling proceedings in Parliament and demanding the government's resignation over the tehelka.com tapes scandal, in which former Bharatiya Janata Party president Bangaru Laxman was videotaped accepting money from fictitious arms dealers.
"Why should I time the release of my research work to coincide with the release of the Tehelka tapes?" Swamy told rediff.com on telephone from Madurai. "If you look at my letter to Vasundhararaje [Scindia], minister of state for personnel, it is dated March 12 and a reminder was sent to her on March 31, 2001, much before the Tehelka people released their tapes."
Swamy said there was no "falling out" with Gandhi, whom he had brought together with Jayalalitha at a memorable tea party in New Delhi in 1999, which had led to the collapse of the previous Vajpayee government. "The only thing is that my research work finished in February this year. And by March I shot off a letter to Vasundhararaje. She even replied to me. A top official of the CBI [Central Bureau of Investigation] told The Indian Express that they were looking into my allegations comprehensively. Why don't you ask the CBI what they are doing about it," he remarked.
Swamy said that when Gandhi sought mercy for Nalini, one of the accused in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, "I started wondering why she should be doing that". Now, as Congress president, she has joined hands with the Pattali Makkal Katchi, a party that had glorified Dhanu, the human bomber who had killed her husband, he pointed out.
Asked if he was happy with the flutter caused by his allegations, Swamy retorted, "Why should I be happy? On the contrary I am sad at what I have discovered."
In his letter to Scindia, Swamy had alleged that Sonia Gandhi and some members of her family had received commissions on Indo-Soviet trade deals arranged by the former KGB, a part of which was spent by the Mainos (Sonia's Italian family) to finance select Congress candidates in elections.
"I have now located where the letter of then KGB chief Viktor Chebrikov addressed to the central committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union can be accessed. The letter is a part of the KGB archives, which are available for perusal by any government," Swamy wrote.
"The Maino family, particularly the mother Ms Paola Maino, had maintained contact with the LTTE since 1984, and even after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, and till now," he alleged.
Top CBI officers were unwilling to stick their necks out and say whether the agency was looking into Swamy's allegations.
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