NEW DELHI: The disclosure by an NRY, Lakhu bhai Pathak, that he paid $100,000 to Chandraswamy in the presence of P.V. Narasimha Rao caused furore in political circles with opposition parties demanding that the CBT should interrogate the Minister and take into custody his as ‘well as Chandraswamy’s passports, Bharatiya Janata Party spokesman KR. Malkani said if they were not taken into custody, “there ‘was every possibility of their tampering with the evidence.”
Senior Janata Dal leader Jaipal Reddy demanded that the CBI should take a serious view of Pathak’s revelations sand interrogate the Prime Minister, *Rao’s genius is such that he attracts serious allegations from the people like Harshad Mehta and Pathak,” Reddy remarked. CPI veteran M. Farooqui expressed the view that Rao’s role in St. Kitts forgery should be investigated, *somebody should move the Supreme (Court to ensure that the CBI was allowed to interrogate the Prime Minister, “he suggested. He said: “Pathak knows quite a lot and the CBI should investigate.
The BJP issued a lengthy statement. ‘Quoting from an interview given by Pathak, Malkani said the immediate custody of their passports would establish whether they were in the United States on the same day. “This is the best corroborative evidence to pin down the ‘two partners in crime,” he f¢ stated that Chandraswamy was the “direct beneficiary of Narasimha Rao’s collaboration in his various acts of deceit and worse.”
Malkani pointed out that Pathak had quoted Narasimha Rao as having assured him: “Swamvji has told me everything, your work will be done,” Rao was at that time the Foreign Minister. Pathak claimed to have struck a deal with Chandraswamy at Holoron House Hotel in New York shortly before Christmas in 1983 in the presence of Rao.
Referring to the dismissal by the Prime Minister’s Office of Pathak’s Statement as “mischievous, malicious and politically motivated. A part of big conspiracy,” Malkani remarked, “The PM’s office has denied for obvious reasons, that Narasimha Rao was in New York in end December 1983 ‘or that he was present at Holoron House Hotel,”
Stating that the facts were easily verifiable, Malkani said this was the latest instance of the people stepping forward with evidence of the Prime Minister’s complicity in cases of bribery and criminal conspiracy. He said: “Chandraswamy and his associate ‘Mamaji’ are at present cooling their heels in Tihar jail where they have been remanded to judicial custody in connection with this case of fraud, But Chandraswamy’s alleged ‘in crime continues to maintain a guilty silence.
He added: “The money was paid for contracts which never materialized.”
Malkani recalled that in 198889, as the Foreign Minister, Narasimha Rao and Chandraswamy had collaborated to frame V.P. Singh, the then main. Challenger to Congress supremacy, “The infamous St. Kitts forgery was the doing of this duo,” he said.
Malkani cited more instances of the Rao Chandraswamy collaboration.
Article extracted from this publication >>May 8, 1996
