New Delhi: The main Opposition BJP on Saturday hit out at the Congress-led Government over the failed attempt to secure extradition of Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi from Argentina.
It accused the government of botching up the plea for his deportation to face trial in India in connection with the Bofors scandal.
BJP spokesperson Prakash Javdekar, whose party had sought a debate in the Budget Session over Quattrocchi's detention in Argentina, seemed doubtful of the Government’s earnestness in tracking the case.
“See the Government's homework was very doubtful from the beginning. Actually if Government wills than they can bring anybody back but the first family of Congress has defrauded the country,” Javdekar said.
Meanwhile, senior BJP leader Vijay Kumar Malhotra said the Opposition would lodge its protest both inside and outside Parliament over the Government's handling of the case.
“A debate on this matter could not take place in the last session. But surely, the government will have to answer questions over Quattrocchi in the next session,” PTI quoted Malhotra as saying.
The Government, Malhotra alleged, had deliberately tried to save him from facing trial in India.
He cited defreezing of Quattrocchi's accounts in London last year, which had been frozen during the NDA rule as part of the investigation into the Bofors gun deal.
Another BJP leader, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, alleged that the Narasimha Rao government, too, had protected the Italian businessman from the investigation process in India.
"The Congress has for the past more than 10 years been casual, soft and protective towards Quattrocchi. This Government led by the Congress kept his detention in Argentina under the wraps for almost a month. There has always been an attempt by the Congress, whenever it has been in power, to bail him out," Naqvi told PTI.
The BJP, he added, would fine-tune its strategy on the issue during its national executive meeting scheduled later this month.
Meanwhile, Congress Spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan said that the Congress wasn't the only party to be blamed for not getting Quattrocchi back to India.
“The extradition process started in Kuala Lumpur when the NDA was in power, if they were that serious about extraditing him then they should have brought him back, we lost to three courts in Malaysia,” Natarajan said.
She also added that the Opposition has always tried to put the blame on the Congress.
“The courts have vindicated the Gandhis saying they were not in any way involved,” she reasoned.
(With inputs from PTI)
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