Attacking the Congress following revelations pertaining to the AgustaWestland VVIP helicopter deal, chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat said that it had become clear now as to why the Congress was earlier raising hue and cry over the Rafale fighter jet deal.
Addressing the media here on Monday, the chief minister said that in the AgustaWestland VVIP helicopter scandal, it had been revealed in the court of law in Italy that some leaders of the then Union Government and some other persons were involved in the scam.
After the alleged middleman- Christian Michel was brought to India, arrested and recently presented by the Enforcement Directorate in the court, further facts regarding the case were presented there.
The code words used by him have made it clear that these were used for the then Congress president Sonia Gandhi. During questioning, Michel mentioned code words and expressions like “son of Italian lady”, “R”, “big man” and “party leader” which all clearly point towards one particular family.
Rawat said, “When this case was taken up in the court in Italy, it had sought documents related to the case from the Government of India.
However, far from providing the sought documents, the then Union Government of Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh even attempted to conceal facts related to the said documents. After 2014 when the government under prime minister Narendra Modi was formed, the government attempted to bring the truth out in the matter and these efforts have succeeded now.
With a scam amounting to `125 crore in the AgustaWestland VVIP helicopter deal coming out, the doubt of the past is now out as the truth for all to see.
This has also revealed that the deals made during the term of the Congress-led Central Government were carried out through middlemen. Middlemen were used to work out deals so that commission could be paid.
However, this is a smaller aspect- the bigger aspect is that this case is related to defence deal and the highly sensitive aspect of national security.
In its pursuit of commission, the then government did not accord due attention to cases related to national security.
The Congress toyed even with the highly sensitive issue of national security.
The Congress has a history of scams,” added the chief minister.
Cabinet ministers Madan Kaushik and Arvind Pande were also present at the Press conference.