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
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