poll
Questioning the credibility of WikiLeaks, the Congress on Monday rubbished its report which claimed that late Rajiv Gandhi, much before becoming the Prime Minister, may have been a middleman for a Swedish company trying to sell fighter aircraft to India.
Making it clear that the allegation against Gandhi has no basis, party general secretary Janardan Dwivedi referred to the last line of the particular cable to emphasise that there was no foundation to the allegation and accused WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange of “spreading lies and falsehoods”.
“An agency, which had sometime back collected a lot of so-called information or got it somewhere and published quoting American embassy.... Till date it has not been verified. I do not understand what is the basis of what has been published in the newspaper today.”
Raising doubts about the intentions of Assange, Mr Dwivedi accused him of “spreading lies and falsehoods” and said he himself wants to form a political party.
He also urged the media not to fall for “temporary gains” and added “we are very hurt with the news” but dismissed questions on whether the party will resort to any legal action into the matter.
“Having noted what the Swede has said, the cable makes the comment that there was no additional information to either refute or confirm the information. The foundation of the whole story falls flat here,” he said quoting parts of the cable.
Mr Dwivedi also reminded the main Opposition BJP of another WikiLeaks cable, which spoke of a big leader of the NDA taking money from the US intelligence agency CIA, a reference to George Fernandes.
Suggesting that the matter should “not be stretched further”, Mr Dwivedi said otherwise it would be presumed that all this had happened in the knowledge of all the BJP leaders as well as Jayaprakash Narayan, who had led the anti-Congress movement in the 1970s.
“If it is accepted that there is any truth in this suspicion (about Rajiv Gandhi). Then just below that cable it is one more report in which the name of a big leader of the NDA figures. I do not want to take his name or level any accusation against him because of the condition in which he is. But whether that is also true that he used to get money from the CIA or he had demanded money from the CIA,” he said.
He asked “should we stretch this story to the extent that the BJP and all its leaders were involved in it, who supported the agitation going on and the vandalism that took place then. Should I stretch it further and say that all this took place in the knowledge of Jayaprakash Narayan.”