BJP linking Christian Michel with party is 'pot calling kettle black': Cong

The Congress on Thursday said the BJP linking it with Christian Michel, the alleged middleman in the AgustaWestland chopper deal, on the basis of an "expelled lawyer" is a case of the "pot calling the kettle black".

Many top leaders of the ruling party have represented "fraudsters" in the past, Congress spokesperson Jaiveer Shergill said at a press conference.

On Wednesday, the Congress expelled Youth Congress leader and lawyer Aljo K Joseph from the party after he appeared in a court here for Michel, who was extradited from Dubai on Tuesday for allegedly being the middleman in the UPA era Rs 3,600 crore VVIP helicopter deal.

Shergill alleged that the BJP is a "one-stop shop which provides full service to fraudsters and scamsters by acting as their advisors, lawyers, boarding pass agents, ticket agents, establishing in London agents and police protection agents".

"The BJP linking the Congress party with AgustaWestland on the basis of an expelled Congress lawyer is a classic case of pot calling the kettle black," he said.

According to Shergill, if the BJP was linking the Congress with Michel on the basis of a lawyer, they should answer on Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's family members taking fees from PNB scam accused Nirav Modi, Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad representing Subrata Roy and Vasundhara Raje giving an affidavit in favour of Lalit Modi in London.

He also said the BJP must give an answer on Jaitley representing stock broker Ketan Parekh.

Earlier in the day, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra, to a question about lawyer kin of some top BJP leaders appearing for those accused of corruption, said they did not only recuse themselves but also returned the fee paid to them.

It showed the clean conscience of BJP leaders while the Congress is "married to corruption", he said. 

British businessman Michel was sent to CBI custody for five days by a Delhi court on Wednesday, a day after he was extradited to India from the UAE.

The CBI's plea for custody was opposed by Michel's counsel — Joseph and Vishnu Shankaran — who said they have not yet received any documents from the agency and the accused may be remanded to judicial custody.