Congress slams Prime Minister for ‘conspiring to frame Sonia’

NEW DELHI:The Congress slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for allegedly conspiring to frame former party chief Sonia Gandhi in the AgustaWestland helicopter deal based on reports related to the arrest of accused Christian Michael in Dubai.

Two days ago, Christian Michael was arrested in Dubai for the AgustaWestland case.According to sources, James was detained on July 12 for questioning. James, who hails from Britain but is currently living in the UAE, was reportedly detained by Indian probe agencies. Notably, the Enforcement Directorate did not name the middleman in the charge sheet it filed on Wednesday in the  Rs 3,600 crore VVIP helicopter deal.

Now, his advocate Rosemary Patrizi clearly states that the Modi government and its agencies were forcing Michael to sign false confession naming UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi,” Congress communications chief Randeep Surjewala said.

“To hide his failures PM Modi had tried to smear Congress leaders’ names but that too has failed now. These revelations show the character of the prime minister,” he said.However, the CBI denied that any such arrest had taken place.

According to Surjewala, the previous UPA government had cancelled the contract for the supply of 12 helicopters in February 2013, confiscated Rs 3,000 crore, initiated black listing of AgustaWestland and its parent company Finmeccanica and proceeded to hand over the case to CBI on February, 12, 2013. However, after coming to power in 2014 PM Modi allowed the firm to participate in the ‘Make in India’ programme via a joint venture with the Tata group.