BJP and Congress on Friday launched a privilege war in Parliament as Amit Shah attacked Sonia Gandhi again asking her to explain a “number of relaxations” given to tainted chopper manufacturer AugustaWestland that he said “compromised” nation’s interests.
Targeting Gandhi, he raised questions telling Congress that instead of adopting an attitude of “thief scolding the cop” should feel “ashamed” and “come clean”.
Following up on his demand on Thursday that Gandhi should name the bribe takers in the Rs.3,600 crore deal, Shah demanded that Gandhi should answer the questions to people of the nation regarding the deal.
The Congress hit back and dared the government to come out with the truth in the deal in the next two months instead of issuing threats and launching a “malicious” campaign.
“If government has the guts, it should come out with truth in the matter in the next two months when the Monsoon session of Parliament will commence”, Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad told reporters.
Subramanian Swamy, who has needled Congress on the issue for the past two days, tabled a breach of privilege notice in the Rajya Sabha against Azad for his statement that the then UPA government had blacklisted Finmeccanica, the parent company of AugustaWestland.
Swamy also sought a discussion in Rajya Sabha on “paid news”. Swamy, raising the issue in the upper house during Zero Hour, said a report from the Standing Committee on Information and Technology had dealt with the issues arising from paid news. “This paid news has acquired the character of cancer,” Swamy said.
On the other side, making light of the attacks on the Congress and its leadership, Azad posed the question whether his party and the UPA leadership would have taken several steps to unravel the truth in the matter if they had something to hide or if they had resorted to corruption.