Sonia Gandhi is unwell. Wikileaks to divulge Indians' Swiss Bank Accounts

The dynastic Nehru-Gandhi clan and Congress have a long history of shady deals and sullied reputations. Anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare's railings against the venal Indian political class have sparked a nationwide call for their roasting. 

Hazare demands a Lokpal Bill with teeth

A very tough Jan Lokpal Bill has been thrown at the parliamentarians to enact into law. The politicians and bureaucrats have been told to agree to be hunted, exposed, cast out, whipped and their ill-begotten assets seized.


It is retribution of the long-suffering Indian middle and lower classes, against the arrogant nexus of politicians, babus and businessmen, who have long misappropriated power and wealth with no accountability.


That whirlwind of anger and disgust plus calls for swift exposure and punishment of wrongdoers, has spooked all politicians.


Congress Party scandals galore


The Congress Party currently in government, is particularly vexed. It is still quagmired in the massive 2G spectrum auction scandal (est. to have cost the Exchequer US$40billion in lost revenues) and the 2010 Commonwealth Games fiasco.


The Bofors scandal of 1984 cost Rajiv Gandhi's Congress government the 1989 election. His own finance minister V P Singh, discovered the pay-offs by the Swedish arms supplier via Italian Ottavio Quattrocchi, a Sonia crony. V P Singh was dismissed from office and later expelled from the party.


Sonia Gandhi has an iron grip on the financial levers of the Congress Party. It explains her unchallenged command over party policy and ability to influence lucrative State and Federal appointments for favoured nominees - from behind the curtain, away from public scrutiny. That magnifies her effective hold on the Congress Party and by extension, national politics.



In 1992, former Izvestia journalist and later Harvard Nieman Fellow, Yevgenia Albats, cited KGB files about payments to Rajiv Gandhi and his family. KGB chief Victor Chebrikov sought authorization in writing to funnel US dollar payments to Sonia Gandhi, son Rahul Gandhi and mother Paola Maino (!) from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in Dec 1985.


Wikileaks disclosure may be the last straw

The Swiss Banking Association Report (2006) revealed that India has more black money (USD 1.4 trillion) stashed there than the rest of the world combined. Indian-owned Swiss Bank account assets were calculated to be 13 times the country's national debt!


Sonia Gandhi is not well. On 4th August she required "urgent surgery for an undisclosed medical condition" at New York's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) which is the world's oldest and largest private cancer centre.


Wikileaks has announced that it has details of names and accounts of Indian holdings in Swiss Banks. That could tumble out any day. How that will add to the seething public rage across India is any body's guess.


ENDS