Describing the withdrawal of the Interpol Red Corner Notice by the CBI against Italian businessman and Bofors suspect Ottavio Quattrocchi as “the last nail in the coffin of the judicial process in the Bofors scandal”, NDA prime ministerial candidate L K Advani said he considered both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi “guilty” and promised to “examine the Quattrocchi issue if voted to power”.

Reacting to The Indian Express report on the CBI decision not to proceed against Quattrocchi, Advani told reporters in Ahmedabad that Singh and Gandhi were “directly responsible” for this and other “shameful acts of misuse of government institutions”. He said voters would punish the Congress the same way as they did in 1989 when the Bofors issue swept Rajiv Gandhi out of power.

Advani said the Quattrocchi affair showed that the UPA was “not confident of returning to power” and, therefore, “could not put on hold such an important decision” until the next government took over. He said “all this amounts to a conspiracy to bury the truth about Bofors”.

“I consider both the Prime Minister and Congress president guilty (of the withdrawal of the RCN)... His (PM’s) silence over the past five years on the systematic misuse of the CBI and the Law Ministry confirms his guilt. It also confirms my assessment that he is a weak and unworthy Prime Minister who had devalued his high office by making it subservient to the diktats of 10 Janpath,” Advani said.

He questioned how the Congress could be trusted on its promise of bringing back black money to India, alleging that kickbacks in the Bofors scandal too were deposited in secret Swiss accounts.

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