Bofors issue: Congress sees link between Lindstrom and opposition storm in House

NEW DELHI: With BJP and the Left raking up the Bofors issue again, Congress today used pun to describe the situation, saying there is a link between former Swedish police chief Sten Lindstrom and the opposition storm in Parliament.

"Obviously there is some work in tandem going on between Lindstrom and the storm in Parliament," Congress leader and Union Minister Kapil Sibal remarked.

He was responding to the disruption in Parliament by BJP and Left parties demanding reopening of the graft case and a judicial probe into it.

"I am sorry to say that this is not the constructive way we should be looking at our own country. The country needs a constructive dialogue, not a destructive debate," he told reporters outside Parliament House.

Sibal said the statements by the former Swedish police chief was an annual affair and "appropriately timed."

"When we are going for general elections or when Parliament session is most appropriately timed," he alleged.

Making a counter attack on BJP, he demanded its apology and said the opposition party should first answer questions why it did not do anything in the case while in power from 1998 to 2004.

"I appeared in the Bofors case in the High Court in Delhi. Their ( NDA Government's) additional solicitor general appeared and he made a public statement which is on the record of the case and the judgement that there is not an iota of evidence against Rajiv Gandhi," Sibal said.

"This is recorded in the judgement and they (BJP) have been vilifying the good name of Rajiv Gandhi for more than 20 years now-- almost 30 years. First, they must apologise," he said.

"Now, they must answer that. Why? While the bofors gun was booming, the NDA was sleeping," Sibal said.