The arrest of Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi in Argentina has been overshadowed by the delay in the news being made public. The leader of the Opposition, L.K. Advani, has asked four pointed questions: When did the CBI hear of the detention? When did the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh hear of the arrest? When did the UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi hear of it? And what was the rationale behind “suppressing” the news for 17 days?
The implicit charge is that the government knew of the arrest earlier, and that the news was kept under the lid because it would show the UPA government which defreezed Quattrocchi’s bank accounts in poor light and because it could have impacted the assembly elections The BJP would also like to believe that Sonia knew of the arrest before Manmohan, and somehow conspired to have her way, given her umbilical link with the Bofors controversy.
What do you think? Is Sonia Gandhi behind the coverup? Has Manmohan once again showed how spineless he is? Will the Bofors scandal bounce back into the national consciousness? Will it deal a body-blow to the Congress and in the UP elections? Is a desperate opposition clinging on to any straw it can find? Or will the latest developments only produce some more hot air?
Without casting aspersions on anybody let us know some basic facts:
Quattrochi and his wife are Italians and were the friends of the first family since Indira Gandhi’s time.
Q and his wife were dear friends of Sonia Gandhi- nothing wrong about it.
Q was known to be an acknowledged power broker-again nothing wrong about it.
Qs were regular weekend visitors to Gandhi family-nothing wrong about it
Bofors scam came to light in 1987
Pay off, euphism for bribe, in the deal was prohibited and yet it was known some people rceived it
Qs continued to stay in India till The Hindu came out with an expose in 1993 which showed the finger of suspicion to Q.
Qs left soon after and India govt with Narasimha Rao as the PM did not prevent them getting away.
Since then Qs have been having a charmed life going on holidays to all sorts of countries.
His bank account defreezed, courtesy UPA govt and he flees with the money (loot)
Now UPA govt though informed earlier by Argentina about the arreat of Q for inexpliable reason remains inactive and only takes action late.
In this scenerio my guess is as good as anybody’s
What happened to our International Breaking- News crazy TV media?? Most of the time they are busy ‘Breaking News’ of Harbhajan Bajji’s ad without ‘Patka’ , Abhishek Bachhan’s midnight visit to Varanasi Temple!! It looks they were sleeping for more than 2 weeks since the arrest of Mr. ‘Q’.
Since most of our TV channels are busy with inane trivia and sensationalising and attributing corrupt motives – as poor West Indian cricketer Marlon Samuels found. They are not concentrating on major issues since they are busy otherwise!