Author: Editorial
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: January 17, 2006
Public memory being notoriously short, few
would recall today that it was Congress Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao who,
after the Government of India was informed by Swiss authorities that kickbacks
from the Bofors deal had been deposited in Mr Ottavio Quattrocchi's bank accounts,
had facilitated the Italian wheeler-dealer's escape literally in the cover
of the night.
Today, we are witness to another Congress
Prime Minister, Mr Manmohan Singh, helping Mr Quattrocchi to walk away with
more than $4 million of tax-payers' money by allowing his Government to brazenly
subvert the judicial process. If his Congress predecessor let Mr Quattrocchi
slip out of India instead of impounding his passport to keep Ms Sonia Gandhi,
who was then in political purdah, in good humour, Mr Singh has allowed the
Italian fugitive to loot the Indian exchequer to please his political boss
who now runs the party and heads the United Progressive Alliance.
This is no act of omission, nor is it true
that the Prime Minister was blissfully ignorant of his Law Minister despatching
the Additional Solicitor General to London to plead with the Crown Prosecution
Service to de-freeze Mr Quattrocchi's accounts, that were frozen in July 2003.
This despite an Interpol red alert for this personal friend of the Congress's
first family who is wanted in India to stand trial in the Bofors bribery case.
On the contrary, the very fact that this Government
knew of the British authorities' decision to de-freeze the account on January
11, the same day the story of this stunning scandal broke in media, and yet
did not bother to prevent Mr Quattrocchi's robbery, speaks volumes about his
complicity. Mr Singh's silence on the issue is no evidence of his innocence;
this is the silence of a man who is guilty of compromising the Government
of India's integrity to appease the power behind the throne.
By refusing to speak up and be heard he has
not come across as a helpless but honourable man; he looks like a pathetic
caricature who is willing to go to any extent to do the bidding of Ms Gandhi
in order to cling on to the Prime Minister's office to which his disregard
for probity and rectitude has fetched dishonour. He clings on to Ms Gandhi,
turning a willing blind eye to gross abuse of power, in this instance to enrich
her Italian friend with more than Rs 20 crore that belongs to the Indian people.
The Supreme Court, while admitting a PIL against
what is easily the biggest scandal in recent years, on Monday has asked the
Government and the CBI to maintain status quo on Mr Quattrocchi's London accounts.
It has also instructed the Government to ensure
that the money is not withdrawn. Such instructions, no matter how well-intentioned,
have come rather late in the day. We can take it for granted that between
January 11 and January 16, Mr Quattrocchi has emptied the two accounts where
the Bofors payola was parked, and is sniggering at those who tried to prosecute
him. There can be no halfway house after this officially sanctioned loot of
the nation. The Prime Minister must be made accountable and his cronies with
whom he conspired at the behest of Ms Gandhi should be held responsible. This
country is not run by the Sicilian Mafia.
