New Delhi: Launching a full-blown attack on the Congress, defence minister Manohar Parrikar on Friday said in Parliament that “big names” who received kickbacks in the Agusta-Westland VVIP helicopter deal have to be found out, so that what could not be done in the Bofors case can be done now.
The minister said while replying to a calling attention motion in the Lok Sabha on the copter deal, that “Tyagi, Khaitan are small people, we have to find the big names who received kickbacks.”
He said that the main beneficiaries of the deal would be tracked so that “may be we can do” what “we could not do in Bofors”.
Mr Parrikar said the “entire corruption” in the deal took place during the UPA tenure but former IAF chief S.P. Tyagi and Gautam Khaitan were “small people” who “simply washed their hands in a flowing Ganga (of corruption)”. The Centre would “find out where the river was flowing.”
Tyagi only a small fish, says Manohar Parrikar
Defence minister Manohar parrikar told the Lok Sabha during a calling motion that while the decision on the AgustaWestland VVIP helicoter contract was taken in 2010, S.P. Tyagi had retired in 2007 as IAF chief and “might have got just some 'chillar' (loose change)”.
As the Congress members walked out when the Defence Minister started giving his reply to the motion, while seeking a Supreme Court-monitored probe, he said the CBI is "very seriously" investigating the case.
He said the UPA government had “done everything" to help AgustaWestland bag the Rs 3,600 crore deal for purchase of 12 VVIP helicopters and that its action against the company following the disclosure of corruption was not pro-active but “forced by circumstances”.
