By TCN News,
New Delhi: The Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), has termed the ordering of the CBI inquiry into the VVIP helicopter deal with Italian company by the Congress-led UPA Government as a political gimmick. As such the party has demanded that in addition to the CBI probe a Joint Parliamentary Committee should also be formed to investigate the issue to bare the truth in right earnest.
SDPI national president E. Abubacker in a statement said that the Union government had no alternative, other than to act at this last moment, since some of the mediators of the deal have been arrested Italy. Giuseppe Orsi, the head of Italian defense and aerospace giant Finmeccanica, also has been arrested in Milan.
Abubacker said: “Congress has become an institution of corruption. From coal to copter, there have been exposes of serious kickbacks, corruption and scams, several scams have been reported in the defense sector itself which include Adarsh Flats, submarine deal, the Tatra trucks, Czech pistol issue which are still unresolved and now we have the helicopter scam”.
He said the scourge of corruption/scams, which has been staring in the face and threatens to tear apart the Indian society, is flourishing in leaps and bounds right under the nose of the ruling UPA Government. Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh’s stance that his government is “dead serious” about eradicating corruption and scams are mere rhetoric and sounds hollow as he has failed to take any credible stance against this. In fact the Prime Minister is the captive of the Congress party whose very culture is synonymous with corruption and scams, he added.
The statement stated that the Italian prosecutors have reported that, an alleged middleman for helicopter manufacturer AgustaWestland touched the feet of former Air Force chief SP Tyagi. The prosecutors in Italy have focused on India as part of a larger inquiry against Finmeccanica, the parent company of Agusta Westland. They say that India signed up for 12 VVIP helicopters after retired Air Chief Marshall SP Tyagi twisted the rules of the tender in favor of AgustaWestland in return for kickbacks that were deposited with his cousins.
Meanwhile, the ex-air chief Tyagi claim that tender parameters were changed by the BJP-led NDA regime at the behest of Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s PMO in 2003 — before he took over as the air chief — to favour Finmeccanica of Italy has made the whole issue topsy-turvy. Italian investigators have alleged that Tyagi was bribed through his cousins to change the tender requirements to help the company secure the contract for 12 AgustaWestland helicopters. This makes the situation even murkier as the BJP has planned to corner the government in the budget session, the statement added.
Moreover, Abubacker said on the other side the BJP which is now is making hay on Helicopters deal should not forget that the NDA government led by it was responsible for Coffin Scam which is till date unresolved.