New Delhi: BJP on Tuesday used the conviction of Italian officials linked to the VVIP chopper scam to target Congress president Sonia Gandhi and asked the then Defence Minister AK Antony to name the party leaders allegedly involved in the scandal.
The party wanted to know who were the bribe takers after those who gave the bribe were convicted by an Italian court.
BJP national secretary Shrikant Sharma said Congress chief Sonia Gandhi should come out with a clarification over the alleged mention of her name in the Italian court's order.
"Her government was the champion of corruption. She must issue a clarification over the mention of her name by the court," he told the media.
BJP Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy went a step further and said Sonia is the key figure in the Agusta deal and that she should be investigated by the CBI. Swamy also said his party has asked him to raise the matter in Parliament
Reports from Italy based on a court judgement citing notes from middlemen that around Rs 120 crore were paid to some political leaders in the deal provided fodder to the BJP which has decided to attack the Congress leadership both inside and outside Parliament.
A note from a middleman reportedly describing Gandhi as the "driving force" behind the deal was seized upon by BJP, but the Congress hit back saying that integrity of Gandhi and the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was unquestioned.
Addressing a press conference, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said Antony had in March 2013 said corruption had taken places in the purchase of VVIP choppers and that bribe had been taken. He asked Antony to come clean on it.ALSO READ: Congress Says AgustaWestland Scam Was Exposed Under UPA
"Bribe givers have been convicted. Why are bribe takers silent? Antony should answer if leaders of Congress are involved in it or not. Are they from your party or not? Please come out clean," he said.
He said the treasury benches will use the issue to attack Congress in Parliament. The chopper scam is not an isolated case of graft and "corruption is the byword of UPA-I and UPA-II".
Prasad said Tuesday's attack on Congress was only the "first chapter" as top BJP leaders, including its chief Amit Shah and Union ministers Arun Jaitley and Venkaiah Naidu, huddled together to mull over their next move.
The top BJP leaders, sources said, deliberated on various issues and fine tuned their strategy to attack the main opposition party during Parliament session.
Antony's honesty is discussed and the senior Congress leader himself speaks about, he said wryly, and asked him to go public with the names of "guilty" party leaders.
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