The Bofors ghost has been buried once for all...

Come elections and the BJP starts playing the Bofors tune. The record now is too old and has lost its musical (read electoral) value. Yet the BJP never gets tired of playing the Bofors record every time elections are round the corner. The old game was now played through the CBI which went in appeal to the Supreme Court seeking permission to revive an enquiry into the Bofors artillery gun deal. The highest court of justice, however, nipped the conspiracy in the bud, refusing the CBI to revive the over three-decade-old case. It buried the Bofors ghost once and for all, setting at rest the Bofors controversy that has haunted Indian politics since 1986.

But what was the controversy? Nothing at all. The opposition, led by VP Singh in 1986, built the Bofors smokescreen alleging that the then ruling Congress Party received kickbacks in the Bofors gun deal. A huge peoples’ movement was built which was backed by the RSS and the BJP and supported by the entire opposition. It was such a massive campaign backed by the media that the Congress was voted out of power in the 1989 parliamentary elections largely on the Bofors wave generated by the RSS whisper campaign.

The BJP likewise was hoping to revive the Bofors ghost to beat the Congress with the corruption stick once again. Well, the Delhi High Court had already dismissed the corruption charges in the Bofors case way back during the Vajpayee government days. Yet, the Modi government tried to revive the much-used Bofors stick to once again beat the Congress. The Supreme Court, however, refused to take the bait, dashing the BJP’s hopes to cry foul against the Congress in 2019 elections. The Bofors ghost is, thus, buried now.

But the chickens are coming home to roost for the BJP this time. The Rafale ghost is haunting the Modi government. It is a full-scale scam wherein the Modi government agreed to purchase 36 fighter jets from French company Dassault whose vendor in India was Reliance Defence, a company with no prior defence manufacturing experience. Ironically, a case regarding Rafale is pending before the Supreme Court. The top court has already asked the Modi government to submit its purchase details in a sealed cover which the Modi government is trying to avoid under one pretext or the other.

Well, the country is no longer worried about the Bofors gun deal. It is a false story that the BJP has encashed many times over. The country is now hooked to the Rafale deal and wants to know under what circumstances the well-known public sector defence firm HAL was thrown out of the deal and why the highly specialised and sensitive task was handed over to a 12-day-old company called Reliance Defence!

The Bofors ghost has been buried once for all.