Charges against Rajiv baseless: Congress

The Congress on Monday dismissed the report published in The Hindu , based on a WikiLeaks cable, which claimed that Rajiv Gandhi, long before he became Prime Minister, may have been a middleman for a Swedish company trying to sell fighter aircraft to India.

The allegation, Congress general secretary Janardan Dwivedi said, was baseless and pointed to a line in the story: “Having noted what the Swedes had said, the cable makes the comment that there was no additional information to either refute or confirm the information.” With this line, he said, “The foundation of the whole story falls flat.”

As the BJP mounted a stinging attack on the Congress, terming the revelations “serious,” Mr. Dwivedi reminded the major Opposition party of another cable that spoke of a senior NDA leader seeking money from the CIA for his underground activities, a reference to George Fernandes.

‘Unverified reports’

The Congress said on Monday that there was a new trend in which sections of the media were resorting to “sensationalising” news for “temporary gains,” whereas people looked to the media for authoritative information.

Reacting to the report published in

The Hindu , based on a WikiLeaks cable, which claimed that Rajiv Gandhi, long before he became Prime Minister, may have been a middleman for a Swedish company, party general secretary Janardan Dwivedi said: “Today, a reputed newspaper of the country has published a strange report. What is a matter of deep regret is that those sections of media, in whose wisdom most people in the country rely, have also now begun to publish sensational news,” he said. “We are very hurt by the news.”

He, however, dismissed questions whether the party would resort to any legal action.

Questioning WikiLeaks’ credibility, Mr. Dwivedi said: “An agency, which had some time back collected a lot of so-called information and published it quoting the American Embassy .... Till date, it has not been verified. I do not understand what is the basis of what has been published in the newspaper today.”