Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and senior Congress leader Ashok Chavan on Monday exchanged barbs over the Agusta Westland VVIP chopper deal, with the former asking the Congress and Gandhi family to come clean on the bribery charges and Chavan likening Fadnavis’ allegations to a thief complaining about a robbery.
As part of the BJP’s strategy to field its leaders across the country to target the Congress and the Gandhi family on the Agusta Westland helicopter bribery case, Fadnavis addressed a news conference and said: "Christian Michel is the key middleman in the AugustaWestland deal. The Congress Party has benefited from him. This is what the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has brought forth before a Delhi court. The Congress and Gandhi family are running away from the allegations faced by it. The Congress and Gandhi family must clarify its role in the deal”.
Alluding to the allegations of bribery in the deal, Fadnavis said that there was a massive corruption in this deal that some officials, Indian Air Force officers and politicians were bribed.
“Two officials were arrested and tried by the Italian courts which have sentenced them to jail terms. On page no. 193 of the judgement, Sonia Gandhi’s name appears four times. It also said that a commission of Rs 125 crore at the rate of 10 per cent was finalized, of which the Congress Party got nearly 52 per cent, 20 per cent went to IAF and the rest to other officials,” Fadnavis said, while reading from a prepared statement.
Fadnavis alleged that Michel was arrested in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2017 and extradited to India recently. The documents and diaries seized from him by the investigators revealed the references like Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, a letter ‘R’, ‘family’, ‘son of an Italian woman who could be Prime Minister’ and other hints.