Agusta middlemen Michel, Haschke & Gandhi family ties

The two main middlemen in the Agusta Westland VVIP Chopper deal are Christian Michel and Guido Haschke. Both are closely associated with the Gandhi family. While Christian Michel and his father, late Wolfgang Michel are directly associated with the Gandhi family from Indira Gandhi’s time, Haschke has close ties with Rahul Gandhi’s private secretary Kanishka Singh’s relatives, who run the real estate company Emaar MGF.

New, emerging information indicates that Michel’s driver in India, Narayan Bahadur, was questioned at length by ED sleuths in the last few days and he has divulged vital information about contacts of the British national who has emerged as the crucial link in the case where agencies are probing alleged payment of kickbacks that helped swing the deal in favour of AgustaWestland for supply of 12 choppers for flying VVIPs.

… will try to obfuscate, obstruct & adopt an ostrich-like attitude…

Wolfgang Michel was involved in defence deals in the 70s and was a frequenter to Delhi. He had a close association with Indira, Rajiv and Sonia. He was also dealing in Airbus, Dassault and British origin companies’ business in India. When he became a persona non grata in the Defence Ministry, the old player, who passed away in August 2012, cleverly passed all his deals to his son Christian Michel in the mid-90s. In February 2013 and July 2013, ‘The Pioneer’ newspaper reported in detail about this matter.

In the mid-90s, Wolfgang Michel was playing in between Sonia Gandhi and the then Prime Minister Narasimha Rao. Senior Michel used to provide information on Sonia’s trips to London to Rao.

Haschke was a Director of Emaar MGF in 2009. How a Swiss national became a Director is a question for another time, and perhaps another post. Emaar MGF is founded by Rahul Gandhi’s private Secretary Kanishka Singh’s maternal grandfather Ved Prakash Gupta in the early 60s in Delhi. Currently, Kanishka’s uncle Rajiv Gupta heads the company. When the news broke out, Emaar MGF issued a press release that Haschke served as Director for a few months and that they have no business relations with Kanishka.
This company bagged the biggest chunk of work in the Commonwealth Games in Delhi. Emaar MGF was the builder of the Commonwealth Games (CWG) village. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) once registered a probe in connection with CWG scams and soon closed the case during UPA tenure. Why? The answer is simple – they are related to Kanishka Singh.

In light of these revelations, one can expect the proceedings in the Parliament to be rocky, where the Congress (and perhaps some of its UPA partners) will create a ruckus, trying to obfuscate, obstruct & adopt an ostrich-like attitude. And the public will get a ring seat by watching it in the comfort of their homes, on TV. It is encouraging to note that Prime Minister Modi has enlisted the help of the intrepid Subramanian Swamy to try and cleanse the establishment.

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