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The war of words between the ruling BJP and the Opposition Congress over the AgustaWestland case continued on Friday with senior BJP MP Subramanian Swamy filing a notice to move a privilege motion against Opposition leader Ghulam Nabi Azad.
Swamy said Azad misled the House by stating on Thursday that the UPA government had blacklisted Finmeccanica.
Azad countered by saying that the BJP is making false allegations to score political points and said he is not a Minister to mislead the House. “The Defence Minister should tell the House about the details of the investigations. The government is leaking out defence details to select media houses. This is like compromising the national security,” Azad told reporters, on Friday.
Left demandMeanwhile, the Left parties demanded strict action against the corrupt. The CPI(M) said in a statement that the Italian investigation and court verdict had found that ₹360 crore was paid as bribes in India.
“When this matter came to light after the investigations in Italy, the UPA government had cancelled the contract and ordered a CBI investigation. However, as is evident, no real progress was made in the investigation during the UPA’s tenure,” the party said and demanded a CBI investigation supervised by the Supreme Court to find the actual culprits in the matter.
“After the Modi government came into office, two years have passed. There has been no serious pursuit of investigation and no substantial progress made even though at the Italian end, all the material relevant to the matter has been placed before the appeal court and the verdict given,” the statement added.
Swamy demanded in the House that his notice be taken up for discussion.
Deputy Chairman PJ Kurien said the notice would first be examined by Chairman Hamid Ansari and if he found a prima facie case, then it would be referred to the Privileges Committee.
Paid newsDuring Zero Hour, Swamy said paid news has acquired the character of “a cancer in our democracy”.
“Recently in the AgustaWestland deal also … one of the news channels had published a contract … between the middlemen and the company for managing the Indian media to produce favourable reports,” he alleged, demanding a discussion on the issue.
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