The ghost of the Bofors scandal returned to haunt the Congress with allies and opposition demanding immediate steps for extradition.
NEW DELHI: The ghost of the Bofors scandal returned to haunt the Congress and the government headed by it with its allies and the opposition on Saturday demanding immediate steps for extraditing Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi from Argentina, for which the government will talk to its counterpart in Buenos Aires.
The CBI, which is investigating the 20-year-old kickbacks in the howitzer gun deal with the former Swedish gun manufacturer, said it will send a team of officials to Argentina to pursue the extradition of Quattrocchi.
The main opposition BJP accused the government of 'hiding' information about Quattrocchi's detention and questioned its sincerity in bringing him to India to face trial.
Party leader Arun Jaitley told a press conference that the 'concealment' of information about the businessman's detention was intended to save the Congress from embarrassment during assembly elections and to delay the process of CBI
complying with legal formalities to enable his extradition.
The BJP's core group, comprising senior leaders like LK Advani, Sushma Swaraj and Jaswant Singh, met at NDA chairperson Atal Bihari Vajpayee's house and decided to take on the government in Parliament on Monday on the issue.
Quoting Advani, senior leader VK Malhotra said, "Why were they silent for 17 days since the arrest of Quattrocchi? We will question the government. We want to ask the Prime Minister, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, and the CBI director
when exactly they got the information."
Even the Left allies of the Congress demanded that the government should make all efforts to get Quattrocchi extradited to face trial in India.
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