Agusta Westland Scam: Swamy Lists All Of UPA’s Sins In Rajya Sabha

BJP’s Subramanian Swamy, in his first long speech in this term during a debate in Rajya Sabha on the AgustaWestland scam, targeted the Congress and Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

At the outset, he remarked about the ruckus his earlier mention of Sonia Gandhi had raised in the House and said he should not be subjected to different laws than other members of the House. He said, “I will begin by pointing out that on one occasion last week, you had expunged my speech. Today I found to my surprise that TMC quoted that letter and it is on record now. If I mention this letter, please don’t treat me separately, and don’t expunge it. There is no law that I can’t quote a letter and others can quote the letter.

“I will begin by saying that Mr Singhvi’s reply is the same that I hear in the courts from him. This has got nothing to do with vendetta. We are at an early stage of prosecution and therefore three things have to be made clear.

“What are the admitted facts that they also can’t deny? What is the criminality? How do we proceed now on the basis of what we know?”

Swamy did not take Sonia Gandhi’s name, but he did not mince his words either, referring to her as “a super cabinet” and a “higher authority than then PM Dr Singh” as he alleged that there is plenty of evidence to prove that Sonia Gandhi was a principal player in the scam, an allegation both she and her party have aggressively denied.

“The admitted facts are the CAG report, the Italian HC judgment. Yes it is true that the NDA had initiated the process of buying the 8 new helicopters but the objective was that the VVIP’s be able to fly to the remote areas. . .

“The aircraft you are buying, they have to be subjected to field trials. But they (UPA govt.) used some other helicopter. They also conducted the testing in Italy, which I don’t have an objection to but why use another helicopter to do these trials. This is a corrupt act.

“Another corrupt act: The original proposal was to buy 8 helicopters. After it became clear that AgustaWestland was the only one to qualify, they decided to buy four more. What was the need for these additional four? Who were these extra VVIP’s which needed it? An excess of Rs 1200 crore was spent.

“The airforce gave a benchmark of Rs 793 crore and it was approved by Mr Antony. But a contract negotiation company rejected that benchmark and gave another number Rs 4877.5 crore. Who is responsible for overruling AK Antony’s benchmark. Surely it wasn’t Manmohan Singh.

After the allegations made by Subramanian Swamy, the Congress demanded that all that had been quoted in the debate had to be authenticated. PJ Kurien agreed with the Congress in the matter and the house created an uproar.

Swamy argued that the Opposition leader Ghulam Nabi Azad had quoted from the same letter on the previous day and if the question of authentication wasn’t raised then, it shouldn’t be raised now.

To this Deputy Chairman PJ Kurien gave the ruling of authentication and said the rules of the house was to be upheld.

He also ruled, “If you give an authentication, then only I will let you speak in the house.” After this Swamy said that he will authenticate if the Opposition authenticated.

Other points made by Swamy:

- CAG says that the helicpoters which were bought in 1988 were hardly utilised, then what was need for new ones?

- Original proposal was to buy 8 helicopters, after it became clear that Agusta was the only one to qualify, they decided to buy 4 more.

- Field tests were not conducted on AW101, supposed to be used for VVIP, but on some other choppers

- There was a clear effort to eliminate all other companies so that only Agusta would fit the required criteria.

The Congress charge in Parliament today was led by Abhishek Manu Singhvi who attacked the BJP asking, “There is no investigation by the CBI, Enforcement Directorate and we are relying on misinterpretations of an Italian court judgement? Are we a banana republic?”

He rejected the “insinuation of corruption” against the Congress pointing out that the Italian judge had said there is no evidence against Congress president Sonia Gandhi.