BJP urges Ratan Tata to name Minister demanding bribe

PATNA - The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday urged Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata to name the Minister, who had asked his company for a bribe when he was in the process of setting up a domestic airline.

BJP spokesperson and Bhagalpur MP Shahnawaz Hussain said that it would be in the good interest for country if Ratan Tata discloses the name of the Minister.

“I knew that, all the things that Ratan Tata said, it would be in the interest of the country that he should tell the name as well. Who was the minister in the 1990’s and what were the problems?” he told reporters in Patna today.

Former Civil Aviation Minister Hussain further said that a flap was imposed on getting into the foreign airlines during the regime of former Prime Minister H. D. Deve Gowda in 1996.

“Tata wanted to bring the Singapore Airlines, but a flap was put in emergency that no foreign airline should come into it, in the Deve Gowda Government and because of that only, the share of other airlines in the Jet Airways also had to be removed,” he added.

Earlier on Monday, Ratan Tata made an astonishing disclosure that a Union Minister had asked his company for a bribe of Rs 15 crores when he was in the process of setting up a domestic airline.

Ratan Tata, however, did not name the Minister and said the incident took place around 10-12 years ago.

“We approached three Prime Ministers also. But an individual thwarted our efforts to form the airlines. Later one businessman told me that you are stupid people. The Minister was asking for a Rs 15 crore bribe,” he said on Monday. (ANI)