After 20 years, truth on Bofors not known: Yechury

KOLKATA: “The question before the country is that after nearly 20 years we still do not know what the truth is,” Sitaram Yechury, Polit Bureau member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), said here on Sunday with regard to the Bofors case.

There is a need for ensuring independent functioning of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Mr. Yechury said, when asked by journalists for his comments on the CBI taking off Ottavio Quattrocchi, an accused in the Bofors payoff scam, from its list of wanted persons.

The CPI(M) Polit Bureau in a statement said the withdrawal of the Interpol Red Corner Notice against Mr. Quattrocchi at the behest of the CBI was another step by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government to bury the Bofors case, a “cover-up” for which the Congress leadership is answerable to the people.

On the reported statement by BJP leader L.K. Advani that the CBI had been used politically, Mr. Yechury said there was no complete investigation into the matter, neither when Mr. Advani was the Union Home Minister nor while the UPA had been in power.