India Wanted Bofors Reference Dropped From President Pranab Mukherjee"s Interview, Says Paper

New Delhi:  India has objected to a Swedish newspaper printing the comments of President Pranab Mukherjee on the Bofors controversy centred on whether politicians took kickbacks in exchange for buying artillery guns made in Switzerland.

The Indian ambassador to Stockholm, Banashri Bose Harrison, has said in a letter that President Mukherjee was not shown the “courtesy and respect” that he deserves as a head of state. Sources in the Indian government say the President’s comments were made off-the-record and have been sensationalised by the newspaper.

The newspaper Dagens Nyheter, in a report today, claims that before the article was published, the envoy asked it “to retract sections of the interview mentioning Bofors”. The paper says in a report today, “She also warned that the planned state visit was at risk of being cancelled.”

The President is meant to travel to Sweden on Sunday. Ahead of that, he was interviewed in Delhi and said the Bofors deal which saw India buying artillery guns from the Swiss defence manufacturer, should not be referred to as a scandal but a “media trial”.

“The President became engaged and was upset when Bofors was mentioned during a question regarding how we can avoid corruption today. Of course we had to tell our readers about his reaction,” says Peter Wolodarski, the paper’s editor-in-chief.

“I find the Ambassador’s reaction regretful. It is surprising that someone representing the world’s largest democracies is trying to micromanage which questions we should ask a head of state, and which answers should be published,” he said on his paper’s website.

Allegations that then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was among the politicians who were bribed by Bofors cost the leader the national election in 1989. In 2004, the Delhi High Court said there was no evidence of the involvement of Mr Gandhi, who had been assassinated in 1991.