Amit Shah raises questions on Agusta Westland deal, seeks Sonia's reply

Asserting that Congress party was misleading the people of the country over the Agusta Westland helicopter controversy, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah on Friday placed series of questions and sought congress chief Sonia Gandhi's answer in the matter.

Continuing his tirade against Gandhi, Shah said that when the deal happened the Congress party was in power.

"When this corruption scandal happened then Congress party was in power, they had their prime minister, Sonia Gandhi was the president of a very important committee and everything was happening under the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) led Congress Party's supervision," said Shah.

"And later the corruption which has already been proved by an Italy court, Congress party in different forms of questions wants to mislead the people of the country, " he added.

Highlighting that the tender could be signed only by the original equipment manufacturers, the BJP president questioned AgustaWestland's signing the tender despite not being the original manufacturer.

" First when the tender was out then in the paragraph two of chapter two of the tender there was a provision that tender can be signed by the original equipment manufacturer only. Even after that you gave AgustaWestland International Limited the permission to sign the tender technically qualified them, while in 2015 AgustaWestland report it was public that they are not the original equipment manufacturer," Shah said.

Shah questioned Gandhi that under whose direction the provisions in tender was tempered with.

"I would like to ask Sonia Gandhi that under whose direction the permission was given. Under whose directive Agusta Westland was found technically qualified. And under whom the tender was tempered with," he added.

Shah also questioned that when the deal of the helicopters had happened, the field evaluation trial was to be done in India and later it was changed.

"Suddenly, the deal was changed and instead of conducting field evaluation trial in India, it was decided to conduct the field evaluation trial in the company's premises. Hasn't this been compromised with the gravity of the matter or hasn't this been tampered with the interest of the country," he said.

Shah pressed that if such permission of changes in the tender was given by the then defence minister A.K. Antony, Congress chief answer for the same.

James Christian Michel, the accused middleman in the chopper deal, has offered himself up for questioning by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Michel told The Hindu from Dubai earlier this week that he was willing to answer all questions from the Indian investigators in order 'to clear' his name, but insisted he had never met the Congress president or a 'single Gandhi' in his life.

Agusta Westland's Rs 3,600 crore contract for supplying 12 VVIP choppers to the Indian Air Force was scrapped by the UPA government over charges of paying kickbacks to Indian agents. In January 2013, India cancelled the deal and the CBI was assigned to investigate the matter.