Bofors issue 'alive' again: L K Advani

New Delhi, July 31: Senior BJP leader L K Advani today said that the Bofors issue had become 'alive' once again with the revelations of former Union Minister and Rajiv Gandhi's close aide Arun Singh that '''somebody'' did receive kickbacks for geting the deal through.

Inaugurating the BJP Yuva Morcha's day-long Conference on ''Right to Employment,'' Mr Advani said Mr Arun Singh was a close aide of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and his assertions could not brushed aside easily.

''He has stated that somebody certainly have taken money and the way the government showed undue haste interest to defreeze the money locked in the UK bank accounts of Italian fugitive Ottavio Quattrocchi gives ample scope for that there was a design in the whole thing... this aspect certainly needs to be pursued in Parliament and outside. The BJP will certainly take it up in the ongoing Monsoon Session,'' Mr Advani, who is also Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, said.

Referring to national politics, Mr Advani said the emergence of bipolar polity in the country after Independence and the territorial integrity were the twin national achievements where the BJP's contributions were substantial.

Noting that during the debates in the Constituent Assembly, members had been concerned that two-party system was a must for democracy to flourish and succeed, Mr Advani said that while they may ''have not succeeded in bringing a two party system like United State and United Kingdom but the nation certainly has a functional bipolar politics after four decades of single party regime.''

Asserting that the Jan Sangh, the predecessor of the BJP, had played a role in opposing the Emergency regime and the emergence of dictatorial tendencies of the Congress party, he said his party as well as the Sangh Parivar organisations had struggled hard for upholding the principle that 'cultural nationalism is true nationalism' through the Ayodhya movement.

He, however, said the nation still cried for transforming ''Swaraj'' to ''Su-raj'' and the BJP was striving to make this possible wherever it was ruling and bring moral pressure on the governments wherever it was in the Opposition.

UNI