The Tyagi threesome and AgustaWestland

Rajiv Tyagi, eldest of three brothers, is a qualified doctor who doesn’t practise. His name crops up as one of the managers of film actor Amitabh Bachchan when he stepped into politics and contested the Allahabad Lok Sabha seat in 1984.

His two brothers and he began liaison work. Rajiv had good relations with Muslim groups in Lucknow and Allahabad. The Bharatiya Janata Party found him useful in engaging with these groups and later found work for him. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s foster son-in-law, Ranjan Bhattacharya recalls him as a person who “used to handle Mr Vajpayee’s constituency, Lucknow.” “I used to run into him once in a while in Lalji Tandon’s (party leader and ex-minister) office when I used to visit Lucknow,” he told Business Standard. “I have nothing to do with him beyond that.”

Yet, in the rumour capital that is Delhi, Rajiv Tyagi was known as a ‘friend of Ranjan Bhattacharya’s, a man who could get things done’. He bought a house in South Delhi’s posh Sainik Farms and later, some say, also on tony West End, presumably through money made through liaison work.

Sources in the Prime Minister’s Office from 2000 to 2004 say they do recall the matter of the purchase of a helicopter for VVIPs coming up in 2002. The Tyagi brothers allegedly intervened through Air Chief Marshal Shashi Tyagi; his name and theirs’ features in the court testimony of Guido Haschke as those who were bribed to swing the deal. “You don’t know Rajiv Tyagi?” exclaimed a Delhi mover and shaker. “Everyone knows him.” He rattled off the names of half a dozen politician-industrialists who have used Tyagi’s unique entrepreneurial talents in the past. Tyagi could not be contacted for a comment.