Senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley on Tuesday said the Wikileaks cables were “unequivocal in the direction” that anyone wanting to do business with India in the 1970s had to come through a particular family, though he did not name the Gandhis.
He said, “These are contemporaneous cables which are giving the impressions that US diplomats formed at that time. There can be a contention that this is or is not proof. However, there was certainly an evidence of the fact that (such) an impression did exist in New Delhi in the 1970s.”
“Cables on both days as reported at least are unequivocal in that direction,” said the BJP leader when asked about the Wikileaks claim that Rajiv Gandhi may have been a middleman for a Swedish company trying to sell fighter aircraft to India before he became the Prime Minister.
Jaitley was in Bangalore to finalise the second list of candidates for May 5 elections. He refused to be drawn into the Narendra Modi versus Rahul Gandhi debate but said the Gujarat Chief Minister was an “extremely popular leader and his views are being heard with great attention and scrutiny by very large section.”
He also dismissed a query on a reported statement by Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan that he is not in the reckoning for the Prime Minister’s post as he did not carry the persona for it. “I am not aware of any such statement,” said Jaitley.