NEW DELHI, India: The Lok Dal President, Mr. H.N. Bahuguna, on Thursday expressed the hope that Members of the Parliament would raise the issue of breach of privilege against the Prime Minister, Mr. Rajiv Gandhi for misleading Parliament on Bofors gun deal.

He said: “The details Indian Express has brought out clearly indicate that Mr. Rajiv Gandhi lied before Parliament. It is clearly a case of brach of privilege. I hope MPs will raise the issue in the coming session of Parliament”.

The Lok Dal President said: “The way the Prime Minister was handling the investigation into allegations of bribe in the Bofors deal indicated that the Prime Minister all along the line was covering it up.

He was commenting on a report published in the Indian Express on February 2, giving full particulars about the payments, amounting to Rs. 64 corers that Bofors made for securing the howitzer contract from India. The particulars published were about the “companies in whose names the payments made, the banks in Switzerland into which the amounts were paid, the accounts in these banks into which the cheques were deposited, the persons in each bank who handled the payments and the transaction, and the code name which was used by the Bofors managers and the Indians they were dealing with for keeping track of the accounts as they were trans mitted and deposited.

Article extracted from this publication >> February 19, 1988