Ahead Of Defence Minister Statement On Agusta, Sonia Gandhi Holds Strategy Meet

New Delhi: Senior Congress leaders drove into party president Sonia Gandhi's 10 Janpath residence on Tuesday evening to discuss how to counter the BJP in Parliament in a discussion on the AgustaWestland scam.

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar will make a statement in the Rajya Sabha or Upper House at 2 pm on Wednesday in a short duration debate on the chopper scam. He met Prime Minister Narendra Modi today to discuss this.

BJP sources have said that Mr Parrikar is expected to make "new revelations" in his statement, which is expected to mention top Congress leaders. The Gandhis may be targeted directly, the sources said.

For the BJP, its new lawmaker Subramanian Swamy will lead the discussion along with Bhupendra Yadav. Mr Swamy is a known Gandhi baiter, who had raised the AgustaWestland issue soon after he was sworn in as a Rajya Sabha member, causing the Congress to go ballistic when he named Sonia Gandhi in connection with the scam.  

The Congress is expected to field seasoned debaters like Abhishek Singhvi and Anand Sharma and former Defence Minister AK Antony.

Congress leaders, including Mrs Gandhi and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, are mentioned by name in documents that an Italian court used to conclude last month that bribes of up to 30 million euros were paid in India for the 3,600 crore AgustaWestland deal for 12 helicopters.

The court does not indict Mrs Gandhi and the others for corruption, but the BJP alleges that the Italian verdict exposes how the Congress, then in power, colluded with Agusta.

The BJP has also attacked Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi demanding that he explain how Guido Haschke, a middleman in the Agusta deal served as a Director in 2009 for real estate developer Emaar-MGF, promoted by the family of Mr Gandhi's close aide Kanishka Singh.

The Agusta deal was signed in 2010 and was cancelled in 2014, after the allegations of corruption surfaced.