New Delhi, March 17 : Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan was sought to be implicated in the Bofors scandal by a planted story linking his name to a secret Swiss account for kickbacks from the Swedish arms giant as part of a "vicious campaign", says journalist Chitra Subramaniam.  

"No, there was absolutely no shred of evidence that he (Amitabh Bachchan) had taken any money. But the water had been muddied so much that by the time the water could be cleaned up, the damage had been done," Subramaniam told IANS in an interview.

"And you know how it is like, imagine the name of the Bachchans, I mean it's a big name..."

Subramaniam, who has detailed how she faced pressure to find any proof of the involvement of the Bachchans -- the Big B and his brother Ajitabh -- after their names cropped up in the scandal, in her recently released "Boforsgate: A Journalist's Pursuit of Truth", accused a section of the then government and media of trying to implicate the Bollywood megastar, who was then a member of Lok Sabha from Allahabad.

"And you say the sixth account...there was no sixth account. It didn't exist... it was planted by the Indian government officials," she said, and called out the media and some then officials from top legal authorities of a "habit of speaking around loosely".

"You don't speak loosely as a journalist... if you are a journalist of stature or an official of stature, you don't speak loosely, throwing names here and there. You know the office of the Solicitor General of India, or the CBI (the Central Bureau of Investigation) meeting the office of the Swiss authorities, you don't speak around loosely. Every word is precious, whatever you say, you must be careful...," she added.

In her book, Subramaniam notes that an Indian delegation, comprising several top officials, had, at a meeting with a Bofors delegation, mentioned the names of the Bachchans and some Italian relatives of the Prime Minister.

She also recounts how she had travelled with an official Indian delegation to Switzerland in 1990 and after a meeting with Swiss officials, one team member took her aside and told her how there was a "sixth account" which could not be blocked as it was connected with the account of someone whose name did not figure in the FIR. According to this team member, the Swiss were given a list of names, including the Bachchans, and had allegedly indicated it was them. She posited that the bid to draw in the Bachchans was due to the fact they were close to the Gandhi family.

Subramaniam notes she made 18 phone calls to her sources "Snowman" in Switzerland and "Sting" in Sweden, seeking confirmation but drew a blank, with both sources telling her that she needed a break.

The story broke out in two Swedish papers and then in a number of Indian papers, and Subramaniam said she was asked by several people how she had missed the story but stuck to her guns of not doing it unless she obtained independent confirmation and was eventually vindicated.

In the book, she also notes how the Bachchans came to her house for dinner, and the talks eventually veered on to Bofors, and she told him that she had not found any evidence against him.

Asked if Amitabh Bachchan's silence on the matter, and his resignation as an MP in 1987, were counter-productive, Subramanian termed him a "gentleman to the core".

"What can you say if the accusation is so false, where you do even begin?" she said.

Subramaniam noted that she had first got in touch with Ajitabh Bachchan in Switzerland even though she was not allowed to meet him when she went to his home, and he later connected with her over the phone before meeting Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan. She recounts further meetings and how she and her family members were impressed by the breadth of his knowledge of things beyond cinema.

But, the contact with the Big B and her stand in not believing the planted story led to a spate of nasty stories and character assassination in a section of the Indian media then.

"And now, when I think back, people have asked me why do you think he (Amitabh Bachchan) was brought in, I think there was envy. The man was.. he didn't need the money, he didn't need the fame, he was somebody on his own. You needed to crush him... and the viciousness of it all, it was horrible," Subramaniam told IANS.

/IANS