Subramanian Swamy Asked By Rajya Sabha To Authenticate Documents

New Delhi: The BJP's Subramanian Swamy met a 6 pm deadline on Friday to authenticate documents he had cited in Parliament during a discussion on the AgustaWestland chopper scam.

He had been told by the Rajya Sabha that if he failed to do so, his remarks during the Agusta debate would be struck off.

Mr Swamy authenticated eight pages of documents before the deadline. The Congress party will be given access to these documents on Monday to scrutinize and verify their authenticity.

Mr Swamy said the reason he was given this deadline was that the "Congress is not able to tolerate facts".

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh shot back: "Lying is in Subramanian Swamy's nature."

Since his debut as a Rajya Sabha member last week, Mr Swamy has made more headlines than many other parliamentarians have in years. His words were expunged two days in a row, with the Congress saying: "He does not know the difference between street words and Parliament words."

This week, Mr Swamy led the ruling BJP's attack on the Congress as the house debated the 3,600 crore chopper deal in which bribes were allegedly paid by Anglo-Italian company AgustaWestland in India when the Congress was in power.

The Congress hit back at Mr Swamy calling him "diabolical and twisted".

Mr Swamy's speeches in Parliament have been peppered with direct or indirect attacks at Congress president Sonia Gandhi. Without taking her name, Mr Swamy referred to her as "a super cabinet" and a "higher authority than then PM Dr Singh", directly responsible for pushing the chopper deal.