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Augusta chopper deal : Swamy's controversial comment in RS creates furore

by IBNS 28 Apr 2016, 08:26 am

New Delhi, Apr 28 (IBNS) As turmoil continued to prevail in Parliament over the AugustaWestland chopper deal, BJP leader Subramanian Swamy on Thursday had a face-off with Congress members after he made a controversial comment in the Rajya Sabha throwing the house in an uproar.

Leading the charge  charge from the Centre’s side over the AgustaWestland chopper scam, Swamy said,  "I have no problem with the minority institutions. But Article doesn't promote financing minority institution. You don't know Constitution; you know Italian Constitution," he said -his barb directed at Congress members. 

All the Congress members raised a hue and cry protesting Swamy's comment which, however, was expunged by the  Rajya Sabha chair.

Senior Congress member Jairam Ramesh said  Swamy provocatively brought reference to Italian Constitution.

Leader of the Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad said, "This man (Subramanian Swamy) doesn't understand difference between words used in streets and ones used in Parliament."
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Swamy on Wednesday had named Congress Pesident Sonia Gandhi linking her to the chopper case in which alleged payoffs were made.

An Italian court investigated the contract because Agusta's parent company is Finmeccanica, an Italian defence manufacturer, and decided that vast amounts of bribes were routed to India by company executives to land the deal for 12 VVIP helicopters for about Rs. 3,600 crore.

 The deal was cancelled by India in 2014 after the Italians began investigating it, a point the Congress is flashing in its defence along with the fact that AgustaWestland has not been banned by the new government from bidding for new defence deals.

The Congress  made its own demand for a discussion on AgustaWestland demanding to know why the defence manufacturer accused of corruption was taken off a blacklist by the Narendra Modi government.