Sonia's politics - I - A G Noorani

Title: Sonia's politics - I

Author: A G Noorani

Publication: The Statesman

Date: January 29, 1998

Khoob purdah hai ke chilman se lage baithey hain/ Saaf chupte bhi nahin, saamne aate bhi nahin (A strange purda is it
that you cling to the blind/ Neither concealing yourself fully, nor appearing in the open). The couplet belongs to the
genius of Daagh; the magic of Begum Akhtar's voice made it immortal. It is an accurate description of Sonia Gandhi's
politics not only since the death of her husband Rajiv Gandhi on 21 May 1991, but even before it, "I will see to your end,
if I am alive, for what you said about me in Parliament she angrily told P Upendra at the Hyderabad airport on 22
December 1987. The streak of viciousness and vendetta which she bared on that occasion, so boorishly, found
expression in party intrigues and came out in the open in her letter to Milap Chand Jain J. He had asked for her affidavit,

a statement on oath. She simply sent a letter of tirade against V P Singh and other political opponents. He dutifully took it
on record and quoted from it with unconcealed relish.

The couple's devotion to each other was praiseworthy; almost legendary. They truly shared each other's life. From this
hard fact, three inferences follow.

OMISSION

First, it s most unlikely that she was unaware of his doings which makes the CBI's omission to interrogate her on Bofors
inexplicable. The second is that while Sonia was devoted to Rajiv, she had and still has no such commitment to his
country. In the mini-biography of Rajiv which Jain J fondly records in his Report occurs this bit: "At Cambridge, Rajiv met
Sonia Maino of Italy and a nuptial knot was tied between the two in 1968."

It says a lot about her that for a decade and a half there after, even while enjoying a privileged position in the P M's
house in New Delhi, she chose not to acquire Indian citizenship. No less eloquent is the timing of her decision to do so. It
was either in 1983 or, according to another report, a couple of months before Indira Gandhi's assassination. In either
case, it was the immanence of the Lok Sabha elections, due by January 1985, that forced the decision. Sworn in as M P
on 17 August 1981, Rajiv was made General Secretary of the AICC(I) on 3 February 1983. He could not have
campaigned in 1984, even if the P M had not been assassinated. if his wife held an Italian passport; still less become a
member of his mother's Cabinet.

The third and last point to note is a total absence of any Interest on Sonia's part In any of the major issues of policy

before the country. True, her education is very limited. But 30 years of membership of India's first political family should
have sufficed to instil interest enough in any of the issues one would expect a person like her to become involved in -
women's rights, environment, secularism, rural uplift, etc. None expects her to speak on corruption, of course. She might
have also acquired some aptitude avid equipment to be able to say a few unscripted words to a crowd in English at least
on Bofors and Babri Masjid.
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What is the profile she has cut in the media all these years? It is one of power without responsibility. She did not give
evidence either to the Verma or the Jain Commission. Nor did she denounce in public a close friend whom the Swiss
courts adjudged to be a recipient of the kickbacks in the Bofors deal. What hats she stood for? There have been just two
areas of concern to abort the probe into the Bofors scandal and to use Rajiv Gandhi's assassination as a weapon with
which to malign his political opponents. Not a single issue which concerns the country's wealth and transcends her
personal agenda claimed her interest all these years. She felt herself forced to enter the electoral arena. Even

a worm can turn. If she had decided otherwise, the most servile of congressmen would have wondered what use she
was to them if shed did not help them now as they faced near extinction. And there was Bofors for which two
Governments were pulled down.

Documents pertaining to the shadowy A E Services Ltd which had received $8 million in kickbacks from Bofors reached
India as far back as on 13 December 1990. V P Singh had resigned as P M on 7 November 1990. AES' case was
decided by a Zurich court, while the others battled before a court in Geneva. All the accounts were frozen a mere four
days after the CBI filed an FIR on 22 January 1990. The CBI simply set on the AES records which had

come into its hands.

The bulk of the Bofors papers were received by the CBI's Director Joginder Singh in Geneva on 21 January 1997. For
the first time in a whole decade, a probe into this colossal scandal began at the seat of its origin, New Delhi. Many who
figured in the dramatis personae were questioned for hours. On 11 February 1997 the CBI con confirmed what was
never in doubt; namely, that Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi's close friends Ottavio Quattrocchi and his wife Maria were among
the five recipients of the Bofors pay-offs mentioned in the documents the CBI had received from the Swiss

authorities.

PAY-OFF

On 13 February, Chitra Subramaniam reported, on the basis of her independent investigations, that Quattrocchi had
received $7 million from Bofors through A E Services. She even quoted the Geneva account number of Colbar
Investments Inc which he owned and the date on which he had received. On 16 February, just five days after the CBI's
disclosure, the CWC passed a resolution saying that its support to the UF Government was ot un- conditional and
authorising its President Sitaram Kesri to talk to its leaders and here to take appropriate steps=94. On 30 March

he withdrew support from the Deve Gowda Government.

Inder Gujral tried to save his job by stalling on the CBI's report on Bofors submitted in May. By October it was evident
that his skills for survival would be put to severe tests once the Jain Report was put before parliament when it met on 19
November. The Gujral Government suddenly be stirred itself on Bofors. On 7 November it gave permission to the CBI to
proceed with preparing a letter of rogatory to the British Government asking for names of ac count holders in the Channel
Islands to whom the Bofors money had been transferred from Geneva. On 21 November the Court

approved of the letter rogatory as required by the CrPC. On 3 December, talks between U F and Congress broke down
and the Cabinet decided to recommend dissolution of the Lok Sabha. On 5 December the letter rogatory was
despatched to the Indian High Commission. On 29 December, Sonia Gandhi announced her decision to campaign for
the Congress. She had enrolled herself as a member of the Delhi PCC only on 31 March 1997. The fact was made
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public on 8 May. At the Calcutta session of the AICC, on 9 August, she heard Kesri's plea to "lead the party" granting her
the freedom to "do anything she wants". She responded by quoting extensively from Rajiv's famous speech to the AICC
in Bombay in December 1985 in which he had castigated the party.

It was in this context that Sonia delivered her Bofors speech at Bangalore on 15 January 1998, the very second in the
campaign. It was worse than disingenuous. It was down-right dishonest, "Six governments have come and gone, five
from the opposition parties; yet the truth has not come out. I wonder why."

DECEPTIVE

The tally itself is deceptive. Radio Dagens Eko broadcast the scandal to the wide world on 16 April 191.17. C)f the six

governments that fell since, only one was run by the opposition-V P Singh's National Front. Two others depended on
Congress support which she pulled away no sooner they made any effort to get at the truth - the Gowda and Gujral
regimes. Chandra Shekhar's was a Congress(I) creature and tool. No wonder he ex-claimed: "What great sin has been
committed if he (Rajiv) accepted Rs 60 crores as commission? In those nearly eleven years, the Congress(I) was

in power for nearly nine years; P V Narasimha Rao for five (1991- 96) and her husband for nearly for after the broadcast,
right till 29 November 1989 when he resigned.

Rajiv Gandhi's prevarication and lies, no less than his many efforts to burke any inquiry whatever, are matter of authentic
record. The Swedes, the Swiss, the Chief of Army Staff, Gen K Sundarji and his friend, Arun Singh, knew all this first
hand. "Of course, none of us was aware that the very highest could have been involved in the matter, Sundarji confessed
in March 1997. Sweden's prosecutor Lars Ringberg complained, on 25 January 1988:

"A judicial inquiry concerning possible bribery offences has not been commenced in India". He expected "some form of
response". He got none. Instead, the Swedish Government was pressurised to get him to end his work. Rajiv nomination
of a B Shankaranand as Chairman of the Bofors JPC itself showed his malafides. The last

statement on Bofors by his Government in Parliament was made on 25 July 1989. It blamed the Swiss for refusing to
accede to requests which were deliberately worded defectively. The sheer dishonesty of it all stood exposed within
months thereafter.

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