The Congress on Saturday rubbished BJP chief Amit Shah’s allegations against party president Sonia Gandhi and also dared Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take “strong” action against “bribe givers and takers” in the AgustaWestland chopper deal.
It termed all charges as “deliberate lies” and demanded that Amit Shah apologise for his “politics of deceit” and attempts to create a smokescreen to “befool the people”. The party also asked the Prime Minister to tell what connection, if any, his Government has with former Air Force chief SP Tyagi, an accused in the chopper deal case.
Congress has been facing the heat over the chopper deal that has put party’s top leadership in the ‘dock’ and generated much heat inside and outside the Parliament.
Hitting back at BJP for targeting Congress in the case, former Defence Minister AK Antony dared the Narendra Modi Government to take “strong” action against “bribe givers and takers”. Asserting that no names were revealed in the Italian court which convicted former employees of AgustaWestland for giving bribes in the deal, Antony said, “At every stage in the Italian court, our lawyer represented the case.
“They cross examined all witnesses. At no stage, names were revealed. My question is now — CBI is with present Government, Enforcement Directorate is with present Government. Why delay, if there is evidenceIJ” Antony said at Thiruvananthpuram.
Addressing a Press conference at AICC headquarters, party’s chief spokesman Randeep Surjewala posed a number of questions to Shah who has dubbed AgustaWestland and its parent company Finmecanica a ‘bogus company’.
He asked the BJP chief whether he would ask Modi Government as to why it has been “protecting” the same “bogus company” for last two years as CBI and ED investigations have “reached no conclusion”.
“Will Amit Shah and BJP answer the people as to why the same ‘fraud company’ was permitted to be part of Prime Minister’s ‘Make-in-India’ programme and participate in ‘Aero India Exhibition’IJ”, he said while releasing purportedly related documents.
Besides, he asked Shah to also answer as to why the same “fraud company” was being given permission by Foreign Investment Promotion Board of Modi Government as recently as on October 8, 2015.
“Will Shah also answer as to why the same ‘fraud company’ was given permission to participate in Defence contract as a ‘sub-contractor’ as also ‘supplier to a contracting party’ with Government of India by order dated 22.08.2014 of Ministry of DefenceIJ”, he asked.
Surjewala dismissed as a “bundle of lies” Shah’s claim that the bank guarantee of the defaulting company AgustaWestland was not encashed by the previous Congress Government.