New Delhi, Feb. 1: The Bofors gun ricocheted in the 1989 elections. In 2004, it looks like the political waters will be muddied by the “petro-bribe scandal” that the BJP has raised to unsettle the Congress.

In an echo of the pre-poll campaign in 1989 — when the BJP would regularly fire Bofors-related questions at the government of the day — the party has kicked up dust with 10 questions pertaining to the new “scandal”.

BJP general secretary Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi has alleged that the Congress received a “bribe of one million barrels of oil worth Rs 150 crore in return of support” to the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein.

He added that a “senior Congress leader” had separately received another million barrel of oil as “bribe”.

Naqvi did not put a date to his revelation, but BJP sources claimed it was during the P.V. Narasimha Rao regime. He sourced his allegation to official and media reports from Iraq, which named “Sonia Gandhi’s Congress” among the 46 individuals, companies and organisations to be rewarded with millions of oil barrels for backing Saddam.

His posers to the Congress were:

• What was the Congress “compulsion” to accept the oil barrel?

• What was the deal between the Congress and Saddam?

• What did the Congress offer Saddam in return and why?

• What happened to the oil worth Rs 150 crore?

• If it is true that the Congress did not store the oil in its party office, where was it sold? To which countries?

• Where was the Rs 150 crore remittance deposited?

• Was it deposited in the Congress official account?

• Was the amount taxed?

• How was the money used?

• When will the Congress give a detailed account of the “oil scandal” to the country?