A day before fireworks are expected to fly in the Rajya Sabha, which will debate the AgustaWestland scam on Wednesday, fugitive middleman Christian Michel’s advocate appeared on TV channels here on Tuesday to confirm that her client’s note had Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s name and that he could become an approver in the case. The note described Sonia as the driving force behind the chopper deal as she had already decided not to travel in the existing Mi-8 choppers.
This even as the CBI questioned former IAF chief SP Tyagi for the second time in as many days and the ED too separately quizzed him. On the political front, Union Minister VK Singh stepped up attack on the Congress leadership saying Tyagi couldn’t have acted alone in chopper scam. He even took on Comptroller and Auditor General Shashi Kant Sharma saying, “If I were him (Sharma), I would have resigned and faced the probe.”
During the scam period, Sharma was DG (Acquisition) in Defence Ministry. In Michel’s note, this post was mentioned as one of the senior-level posts where commission had to be shared. Talking to the media, Sharma rejected the allegations.
For its part, the BJP also dragged Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s private secretary Kanishka Singh in the controversy by pointing out that the other middlemen Guido Haschke and Gautam Khaitan were Directors of Kanishka’s family-run company Emaar MGF during the scam period.
BJP leader Subramanian Swamy will initiate the debate in the Rajya Sabha and Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar will reply on the debate on Wednesday. It is expected that the lok Sabha will take up the debate on the chopper scam on Thursday. The BJP and Congress leadership were engaged in last minute brainstorming session over the matter till late in the evening.
Rosemary Patrizi, advocate of Michel, appeared on TV channels to say her client might become an approver and cooperate with Indian probe agencies. She said Michel is ready to come to India and face investigators provided he gets an assurance he will not be arrested. She also confirmed that Michel’s note, which is now part of the judgment, contains Sonia Gandhi’s name.
Tyagi was grilled by the CBI in the morning and the ED in the evening. The agencies had on Monday questioned him on various aspects of the case, including his alleged links with middlemen, his alleged trips to Italy, reasons behind changing specifications, and relations with his cousins, the sources said. CBI had already registered a case against Tyagi, along with 13 others, including his cousins and European middlemen.
CBI sources said the agency has called Khaitan, former board member of Aeromatrix, one of the suspects in the case, for questioning on Wednesday while Tyagi’s cousins — Sanjeev, Rajeev and Sandeep — have been called later this week.
Meanwhile, reacting to BJP leader Kirit Somaiya’s allegation of Kanishka Singh’s link with Haschke and Khaitan, Rahul evaded questions and only quipped that he is “happy to be targeted”. “I am always being targeted, happy to be targeted,” he told reporters while entering Parliament House.
Somaiya has written to the ED and CBI asking them to check Rahul’s links with a real estate developer allegedly involved in the CWG scam and also the alleged connections of his political aide Kanishka with a middleman in the AgustaWestland deal.
Somaiya had said that Haschke, middleman in the chopper deal is common in both the scams and that he is linked to Michel. Haschke and Khaitan were Directors of Emaar MGF in 2009, which bagged the biggest contract in Commonwealth Games for construction of games village. The contract of building flats in the CWG village was more than Rs3,000 crore.
Union Minister VK Singh, who was former Army Chief, said, “It is a long process. Only one man cannot be there. If the qualitative requirement is changed, somebody is involved in it or is it only Tyagi. It’s a big line. let’s not try to put a curtain and say only SP Tyagi is involved. There are many more people,” Singh said.
Reacting to Rahul’s evasive reply, Saingh said the Congress vice president was playing the “victim” card. “A lot of people want to play victim. If he wants to play that he is most welcome. Kirit Somaiya is one of those who do a lot of research and I am quite sure there must be some fact in that (the allegations),” Singh said.