The Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday said the Tatra scam was the second biggest after the Bofors scam and demanded immediate resignation of Defence Minister A K Antony for allegedly patronising corruption.
"This (Tatra) is the second biggest scam after the Bofors scam and it has exposed the fact that the weapons of our soldiers are not up to standard," BJP national spokesperson Prakash Javdekar told a press conference.
Javedkar alleged that the defence minister was in the know of things and Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad had in 2009 made a communication to Antony about the scam and alerted the government.
"But the defence minister did not act in the last 30 months," he said, demanding immediate resignation of Antony "who has lost the moral right to continue as defence minister."
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'They are trying to hide the facts'
Javdekar said he was not satisfied with the statement of Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee that there was no rift between the defence minister and Army Chief GeneralV K Singh.
"They are trying to hide the facts," he alleged
The BJP leader criticised the Centre, particularly Antony, for "sitting on the issue for 30 months even as he knew all the facts and crying hoarse about absence of a written complaint."
Javdekar, who raised the issue in the Rajya Sabha, demanded a clear statement from the government about the action it had taken so far on the "highly vital" issue.
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'It is a Dalal raj that has thrived'
Alleging that corruption has been the hallmark of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government, Javdekar said, "After the CWG scam, 2G spectrum, massive scam around defence purchases have exposed the government once again".
"We are not well equipped in our defence preparedness under the present regime," he said.
Stating a report about the lack of planes for pilots' training in the defence forces, he said, "This is a precarious condition of the central government."
"It is a Dalal raj that has thrived under the UPA governance and that is running on a commission basis," the BJP leader said.
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'This government at Centre will go'
Photographs: Reuben NV/Rediff.com
Criticising the Centre for putting a "heavy burden" on the common people in the Union Budget, he said the BJP would fight the inflationary budge and the policies of the UPA government.
He claimed that all Congress' allies -- Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, DMK in Tamil Nadu and NCP in Maharashtra -- had been vocal against the Congress for its poor governance.
"This government at Centre will go either in 2013 or 2014 and the BJP is prepared to fight the polls to come to power and bring about a change in the governance," he said, adding that the country needed a leader like Atal Behari Vajpayee.
Javdekar also demanded that CBI be made an independent agency free of any influence by the ruling party.
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