Left sniffs ‘scam’ in airport bid, walks out of LS

Immediately after, Sitaram Yechury demanded ‘‘rebids’’ for the upgradation of Delhi and Mumbai airport. But after apprising Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of the proceedings, Patel informed the media that there was no proposal to scrap the deal at this stage as the process of selection was still alive.

In the Lok Sabha, the calling attention was taken up after the question hour with Mohd Salim of the CPI(M) first asking the government to explain the bidding process as he saw a ‘‘conflict of interest’’ in the functions of the technical, financial and legal consultants. The party’s Basudeb Acharia and Sunil Khan and the CPI’s Ajoy Chakraborty also alleged that while financial advisor Abn-Amro had major bidders like Reliance and GMR as its clients, legal consultant Amarchand Mangaldas had Reliance as its client. They also said global technical consultant Airplan Australia had been ‘‘taken over’’ by another group. Both Salim and Chakraborty pointed out that AS Mexico, one of the joint venture partners was itself being taken over.

Not to be left out, BJP MP VK Malhotra demanded a clarification from the government on a newsreport which suggested that one of the EGOM members had indicated the bidding process was not transparent.

In his reply, the aviation minister assured the House that appointment of ‘‘best professional consultants’’ was made ‘‘through the due processes.’’

He asserted that AAI would ‘‘neither be sold off, nor be privatised’’. He said, ‘‘There will be no job loss. They will either be absorbed by the new joint venture companies or taken by AAI after mandatory completion of three years in the joint venture firms.’’