UPA government did everything to help AgustaWestland: Manohar Parrikar

Maintaining heat on the Congress, the government on Friday said the previous UPA government had “done everything” to help AgustaWestland bag the contract for VVIP helicopters and asserted that it will track down the main beneficiaries of the kickbacks in the deal.

Defence minister Manohar Parrikar said in the Lok Sabha that former Air chief S P Tyagi and Gautam Khaitan, both accused in the case, are “small people” who “simply washed their hands in a flowing Ganga (of corruption)” and that the government will “find out where the river was going”.

Speaking on a Calling Attention Motion on the chopper deal, he took a dig at Congress, saying it seemed to know where this “Ganga was going”.

He said the UPA government had “done everything” to help AgustaWestland bag the contract and that its action against the company following the disclosure of corruption was not pro-active but “forced by circumstances”.

Tyagi and Khaitan were “small people who simply washed their hands in a flowing ganga (of corruption)”, Parrikar said, asserting that the government will track down the main beneficiaries of the kickbacks in the Rs 3600 crore deal for 12 VVIP choppers.

Congress MPs walked out of the Lok Sabah in protest against defence minister Manohar Parrikar’s allegations.

“Why are you (Congress) concerned? I have not named anybody. You seem to know where the ganga was going,” the defence minister said, taking a swipe at Congress.

Parrikar, who was criticsed by opposition members for reading from a statement during a debate over the issue in the Rajya Sabha, mostly spoke extempore and narrated the sequence of events related to the contract and its subsequent cancellation.