New Delhi, May 6 (IANS): Blaming the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government for the crisis in Air India, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Friday alleged there was a "conspiracy to kill" the national carrier and demanded a Supreme Court-monitored independent probe into the "scam".
"There is conspiracy to kill Air India. There should be Supreme Court-monitored independent probe into the Air India scam," BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar said here.
Accusing the government of not moving swiftly to put an end to the strike by pilots of Air India, Javadekar said the agitation had greatly inconvenienced common people due to flight cancellations, non-availability of flights and costlier air tickets.
"BJP holds then UPA government and Mr. Praful Patel (former civil aviation minister) responsible for the present bad state of Air India. CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General) has rightly expressed concerns about the future of the airline as it is losing its share in the market," Javadekar said.
"The decisions to merge Air India and Indian Airlines, large acquisition of 111 aircraft, adverse bilateral agreements and withdrawal of profitable routes in the name of route rationalization are not only bad but constitute an Air India scam," he said.
Javadekar said the CAG report has pointed out that acquisition of 111 aircraft was done without adequate diligence or independent verification of cost-escalation claims by the manufacturers and there was under utilization of the fleet.
Javadekar said that losses of the merged entity were mounting every year.
"Instead of having a holistic vision for the future, Air India has decided to expand its fleet by acquiring more aircrafts in next two years and has uploaded a fresh tender to lease 16 new Airbus A320s. All these decisions need detailed investigations as many other airlines were able to successfully bargain aircraft at lesser price from the same manufacturers. There is every suspicion of large scale corruption in such an acquisition," he said.
The BJP spokesperson said passengers were paying through their nose due to the fare hike by private airlines and the government should intervene to bring down the fares.
He denied reports that the BJP had a hand in the strike by pilots. "These charges are being made as the government wants to hide its failures... It is not our union," he said.
Asked about the striking pilots meeting party chief Nitin Gadkari, Javadekar said they were meeting other party leaders also.