UPA Govt concealed facts on Quattrocchi: Advani

Nagpur, Mar 11: Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha L K Advani today (Mar 11, 2006) charged the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government with avoiding placing actual facts on the defreezing of Ottavio Guattrocchi's bank accounts in London before Parliament and trying to put the entire blame on the CBI.

Mr Advani, who arrived here last night to attend some programmes in the city, told reporters here that Quattocchi's London accounts were frozen by the British authorities, as sought by CBI, which had declared him a fugitive in the Bofors case.

However, when the issue was raised in Parliament, the Prime Minister said it was the decision of CBI and that he did not know about it.

Mr Advani alleged that the Prime Minister was trying to protect Congress President Sonia Gandhi and misleading the nation on the Italian businessman's scandals. ''I urge the Prime Minister to come clean and, in the spirit of the much-trumpeted Right to Information Act, place all the documents related to the defreezing of Quattrocchi's accounts, before Parliament,'' he said.

The Government is also not serious about tabling the documents relating to the 'oil-for-food' scam following the Volcker report, making former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh the scapegoat, he added.

UNI