Sunday 7 April 2013

Rajiv Gandhi 'worked' as middleman in aircraft deal: WikiLeaks




NEW DELHI: In a latest WikiLeaks revelations, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi may have acted as a middleman for Swedish company Saab-Scania, which had tried to sell its Viggen fighter aircraft to India in the 1970s.

Saab-Scania eventually could not seal the deal, which went to British SEPECAT Jaguar. This was several months much before Rajiv Gandhi became PM, during his years as an Indian Airlines pilot.

According to a report published in The Hindu, Rajiv was considered to be a valuable negotiator because of his family connections, states the paper, citing the Kissinger Cables, the latest bunch of classified cables of the US administration released by WikiLeaks.

WikiLeaks sent shockwaves around the diplomatic world in 2010 when it released a set of more than 250,000 leaked US cables.

Meanwhile, the main opposition party BJP has slammed the ruling Congress over the fresh WikiLeaks allegations involving Rajiv Gandhi.

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