Congress and BJP have gotten into a feud over the recent Rafale’s deal done by the central government recently. While the Congress is alleging that the deal was finalized at much higher cost than earlier negotiated by the UPA government and BJP denying the allegations said that the opposition is only blaming to divert the attention.
Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, speaking to reporters after the meeting of the newly formed All India Unorganised Workers Congress (AIUWC), asked that, why the Prime Minister is not being questioned about the Rafale’s deal. The Congress leader said that “I answer all your questions, whatever you ask me. Why don’t you question Prime Minister Modi on the Rafale deal, on Amit Shah’s son? Why don’t you question the Prime Minister, who changed the entire Rafale deal to help a businessman?”
Congress has alleged that the NDA government compromised with the national interest and security to promote crony capitalism. Congress spokesperson, Randeep Singh Surjewala giving details of the deal made by the UPA government and the alterations made by the NDA government said that Modi only wanted to help one businessman.
He informed that a tender was passed on 20 Aug 2007 for the purchase of 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) for the Air Force. However, after negotiations, two of them — Rafale and Eurofighter Typhoon remained in the figuring. Later, on 12 Dec 2012, “Rafale was declared L1 vendor, the bidder whose quotation is the lowest, with a base price of $10.20 billion (Rs 54,000 crore according to the conversion rate prevalent then),” he said.
He further added that it was decided that 108 aircrafts will be manufactured in India by the HAL with a transfer of technology and 18 will be flown to India. Surjewal added that after the NDA government came to power in 2014, the earlier deal of the purchase of 126 aircrafts was canceled by the Modi government on 30 July 2015. Following this, another deal was signed on 26 Sep 2016 for procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets for $8.7 billion.
Unlike earlier, where according to the UPA deal, HAL was to manufacture the aircrafts in India, according to the new alterations, the manufacturing went under Anil Ambani’s Reliance Defence Limited in a joint venture with Dassault Aviation on 3 Oct 2016.
The Congress spokesperson alleged that “There is complete non-transparency, a flagrant violation of a mandatory provision of Defence Procurement Procedure, sacrificing national interest on the transfer of technology to PSU HAL and blatant promotion of financial interests of crony capitalist friends of the prime minister have marred the purchase of the aircraft.”
Congress further giving data to support its allegations said that as per the UPA deal, each aircraft would have cost Rs 526.10 crore but now after the alterations by the NDA government, each aircraft would now cost Rs 1570.80 crore. He also accused that the deal between Dassault Aviation and Reliance Defence Limited did not have the approval of the Union Cabinet, Cabinet Committee on Security and Foreign Investment Promotion Board.
Randeep Surjewala, sternly pulling down on Modi said that “It is time for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government to answer to people of India as to why the government is buying 36 Rafale aircraft at a highly inflated price compared to originally negotiated the base price by UPA-Congress.”
Will PM, Shri Modi answer the following?
1. Why is Modi government buying 36 Rafale rcrafts at a highly inflated price compared to the originally negotiated base price by UPA-Congress government?
— Randeep Singh Surjewala (@rssurjewala) November 14, 2017
Meanwhile, responding to the accusations made by Congress, BJP spokesperson GVL Narasimha Rao said that all the allegations made by Congress were baseless to divert the attention. He said that Congress was making false allegations and it was a media stunt to divert the attention from the AgustaWestland VVIP chopper scandal, as Congress fears that the party’s bigwigs may have to face questioning regarding the scandal.
Between all the debates and allegations, IAF Chief Birender Singh Dhanoa supported the deal made by the NDA government. He said that the allegation of the deal favoring only a single businessman was wrong. “There is no controversy. What is the controversy, I don’t understand? It is not overpriced. The government has negotiated a very good deal. I think we have negotiated a better deal in the Rafale contract than what we did in MMRCA (Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft),” Birender Singh said.