Quattrocchi issue: Sonia's silence speaks volume

New Delhi, Mar 6: The BJP today took great exception to UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi maintaining a conspicuous silence on the arrest and subsequent release of Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi by the Argentinian police, saying her silence speaks volumes about the complicity of the Congress in helping the on-the-run criminal.

BJP Parliamentary Party Spokesman Vijay Kumar Malhotra said people were expecting Ms Gandhi to express her views on Quattrocchi's arrest by Argentinian authorities and his bail for want of evidence at the Congress Parliamentary Party. But she had chosen to parry the issue because she knew the Congress complicity in his flight away from justice when it was in power at the Centre.

The UPA government had surreptitiously defrozen the proceeds of Bofors kickbacks locked in the London bank account. She knew that anything she said would not go down well with the people and hence had chosen not to speak at all, he alleged.

Mr Malhotra said Ms Gandhi chose not to speak either about the killing of JMM MP Sunil Mahto by extremists in Jharkhand on March 4.

The Congress dalliance with Naxals in the country in Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Asom for electoral gains had made 150 districts of the country out of bounds for administration.

Referring to the CPI-M raising the demand for separate funds for Muslims in development, Mr Malhotra said all the so-called secular parties had taken off the veil. They had shamelessly replaced the term 'minority' with 'Muslim appeasement' for the sake of a votebank disregarding the spirit of the Constitution which does not allow any discrimination on religious grounds.

''They have no love for Muslims but want to express their anti-Hindu sentiments,'' he alleged.

UNI

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