While Congress desperately keeps trying to target the NDA government with made-up scams, fiascos of its scam ridden past keep popping up. One such fiasco, the AgustaWestland scam, dates back to 2010 when a tender was assigned to AgustaWestland and 12 AW101 helicopters were to be acquired by the government of India at a total cost of Rs. 3,546 crores. Out of these 22 choppers, 8 had to be allotted to the VIPs-the Prime Minister, President of India and other ministers.
According to media reports, the Dubai government has finally ordered extradition of British middlemen Christian Michel. He is accused of handling and routing over 60 million euros for kickbacks in the deal for AgustaWestland helicopters. UAE authorities arrested him in 2017 and since then, the Indian Investigating Agencies had been demanding to extradite Christian Michel to India.
Last month, the Dubai Cassation Court had approved India’s request to extradite Christian Michel, and it also rejected Michel’s plea against extradition. After this, a long formal administrative order by the Dubai government was long awaited and that wait is now finally over.
According an Economic Times report, with Dubai government clearing the decks for Michel’s extradition, he is likely to be brought to India this week. The report further says that the representatives of the India government were already in Dubai for the past few days completing all the legal formalities and they were trying their level best to extradite Michel as quickly as possible.
After November 19 order of Dubai’s Cassation Court, the Ministry of Justice, commenced the process of completing the formalities to extradite Michel. He will be formally arrested in India and later on will be produced before a Delhi Patiala House court.
The timing of the extradition could not be worse for the Congress as it desperately tries to build a narrative of fictional ‘Rafale scam’. They want to make Rafale deal, ‘a Bofors scam’ moment for the BJP in order to gain relevance but so far they have only suffered abject failure in their efforts. Extradition of Michel would add salt to their injuries. The interrogation of the middleman by the Indian agencies would definitely reveal details about the scam that the Congress has tried to hide. The fresh revelations by Michel once he is extradited would bring huge embarrassment for the Congress party ahead of 2019 general elections. It would put them on the back-foot at a crucial time. The revelations would give the BJP an issue to target the Congress party that too based on solid evidences. It is no exaggeration to say that fresh revelations coupled with many other issues and PM Modi’s achievements would exacerbate things for the Congress party in 2019 general elections.