New Delhi: As former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s alleged role as a middleman for a Swede arms manufacturer continues to draw attention, the late Congress leader was on Monday backed by Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy as a non-corrupt person. The Dispatch News Desk (DND) reported.
Swamy, a known baiter of the Gandhi family, lent his support to the former prime minister insisting that the evidence against him was too thin and that he did not look like someone who was corrupt.
“It is too thin… They say he defended a company which did not get contract,” Swamy said reacting to the WikiLeaks revelation.
“I am surprised that the Congress party, its president (Sonia Gandhi) and vice-president (Rahul Gandhi) who happen to be wife and son of Rajiv Gandhi, they should defend him… I know he did not get any money in Bofors deal,” he said.
“From what I know of Rajiv Gandhi as a friend and minister, he did not look like someone who was corrupt… He struck me as a person who had made accommodation to his family and friends. He should be defended by people who knew him at that time, like his family,” Swamy said.
“There is nothing much in this WikiLeaks,” he concluded.
According to the latest set of US diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks, Gandhi was the main Indian negotiator for Swedish firm Saab-Scania for its Viggen fighter aircraft, primarily on account of his indispensable family connections.
