Swamy meets 6 pm deadline, authenticates all AgustaWestland documents

Bharatiya Janata Party MP and member of Rajya Sabha Subramanian Swamy met a 6 pm deadline on Friday to authenticate documents he had cited in Parliament during a discussion on the AgustaWestland chopper scam.

Swamy had been instructed by the deputy speaker of the Rajya Sabha that if he failed to do so, his remarks during the Agusta debate would be struck off.

Swamy authenticated eight pages of documents before the deadline. The Congress party will be given access to these documents on Monday to scrutinize and verify their authenticity.

Swamy said the reason he was given this deadline was that the "Congress is not able to tolerate facts".

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh shot back: "Lying is in Subramanian Swamy's nature."

Since his debut as a Rajya Sabha member last week, Mr Swamy has made more headlines than many other parliamentarians have in years. His words were expunged two days in a row, with the Congress saying: "He does not know the difference between street words and Parliament words."