New Delhi : Even as the political heat generated by the AgustaWestland chopper deal is yet to die down, some more defence deals may come under the scanner, including one on Pilatus basic trainer aircraft, defence ministry sources said on Thursday.
India inked a deal for buying 75 PC-7 Mk II training aircraft from Swiss aircraft manufacturer Pilatus in 2012, ignoring the American Beechcraft T-6C Texan II and the South Korean KT-1 aircraft.
According to the sources, the South Korean government had then lodged an official protest with the ministry over the selection of Pilatus as the “lowest bidder”.
A ministry official said collecting information on the AgustaWestland chopper deal, however, remained the government priority, and that a list of officials involved in the deal was being prepared. The official said the list would be handed over to the investigation agencies for further probe.
According to online media reports, the Rafale jet deal finalised during the Congress-led UPA-2 regime may also come under the scanner.
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New Delhi: Former Indian Air Force chief S.P. Tyagi, who is being questioned by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in connection with the AgustaWestland VVIP chopper deal, will be quizzed on Thursday
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Delhi bureau adds: Meanwhile, there are no signs of any de-escalation of the political battle over the Rs.3600 crore aborted deal for 12 VVIP helicopters involving the Italian company AgustaWestland. A day after an acrimonious 5-hour debate in the Rajya Sabha, Prime Minister Narendra Modi showered fulsome praise on Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and posted the speech on his twitter account, urging his followers to listen to it.
Modi went ahead to describe it as “one of the best speeches, displaying best parliamentary traditions,” and added that the minister ‘‘rose above politics & placed all relevant facts on the table”.
In a sharp reaction revealing the chasm between the two sides, Congress spokesperson Jairam Ramesh observed that Parrikar’s reply was one of the “worst examples in parliamentary history,” as instead of responding to issues raised by the opposition, he read out a “pre-prepared catalogue of accusations and charges”. He accused Parrikar of not maintaining the dignity of a Defence Minister by “resorting to a political speech”.
The Congress leader charged that all through his long intervention Parrikar did not contradict the former defence minister A K Antony’s assertions that the specifications regarding the height were changed during the first NDA regime.
The political tension between the two sides that virtually rules out any consensual approach on key issues related to economic reforms is all set to go up several notches on Friday. The Lok Sabha, where the BJP has superior numbers, is expected to have the same AgustaWestland debate, and outside Parliament the Congress has planned a massive show of strength by organising a ‘Save Democracy’ rally at Jantar Mantar.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi and party Vice President Rahul Gandhi are expected to launch a sharp attack on the government at the rally which is being held in the backdrop of imposition of President’s rule in party-ruled Uttarkhand and Arunachal Pradesh and alleged attempts to destabilise the Congress government in Himachal Pradesh. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will also address the rally.
At the party’s media briefing, Ramesh set the tone for the rally accusing prime minister Narendra Modi of “masterminding a conspiracy to implicate” Congress leadership in the AgustaWestland case. “The cat is out of the bag, especially given the manner in which the Prime Minister on Wednesday night tweeted and hailed Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar’s reply in the Rajya Sabha on the issue. It shows not only his mindset but his strategy too”, Ramesh said.
He said that the BJP’s rejection of the Congress demand to have a Supreme Court monitored CBI probe into the chopper deal reveals its politics of ‘insinuation and innuendo.” He said that they are not interested in a credible inquiry. ”The outcome of the CBI inquiry has already been decided by the Modi-Shah duo as they want to fix the Congress leadership through it. This is their definition of acche din,” he added.
