BJP MP Dr Subramanian Swamy on May 4 made direct attack on Congress leaders on the AgustaWestland scam in the Rajya Sabha. Here are some of the key quotes:
- AgustaWestland has got nothing to do with vendetta, we are at an early stage of prosecution
- Objective of purchase was that VVIPs will be able to fly at greater heights
- It is a lie to say that NDA Govt was one which changed specification of height. The objective was that VVIPs should be able to fly to remote areas such as Siachen/north-east and therefore ought to fly at heights above 6,000 metres and should be out of range shoulder rockets
- They (UPA) didn’t use AW101 aircraft (which was bought) for field trials but used some other
helicopter, which is fraud in itself - Original proposal was to buy eight helicopters After it became clear that Agusta was the only one to qualify, they decided to buy four more
- In January 2006 Air Force gave benchmark estimate for this deal as 793 crore. This was approved by the then Defense Minister AK Antony
