By IANS,
Bangalore: The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Thursday wheeled in the Bofors gun acquisition scandal to attack Karnataka Governor H.R. Bhardwaj for mounting criticism of the party’s government in the state.
BJP national executive committee member Vaman Acharya said Bhardwaj, as central law minister, was responsible for de-freezing bank accounts of Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi, who is alleged to have made money in the Indian government’s Bofors gun deal during the Congress regime of the prime nminister Rajiv Gandhi in the 1980s.
The BJP picked on the Bofors gun scandal and Bhardwaj’s role to hit back at him a day after the governor told reporters that he had a list of corrupt state ministers and anybody could come and collect it. Bhardwaj also said that he had given the list to Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa.
Acharya said the BJP would launch ‘remove the governor’ campaign next month as he was acting with ‘mala fide’ intention to damage the BJP’s prospects in the Dec 26 and Dec 31 polls to taluka (sub-district) and zilla (district) panchayats in the state.
Charging Bhardwaj with acting in a ‘partisan’ manner, Acharya said a BJP team of state and central leaders would meet President Pratibha Patil to seek his removal.