The first batch of 5 Rafael Jets have arrived, the media along with the BJP Govt seems too engrossed in its celebration as though this is a mammoth accomplishment of Modi Govt. Media is over pouring the Govt with praises as though India never received any fighter jets before.
We do applaud our Indian Air Force but that doesn’t mean Government can escape from pertinent questions raised on the Rafale deal.
The questions are:
- Why each aircraft costs ₹1670 Crores instead of ₹526 Crores, as negotiated by UPA Government?
- Why only 36 aircrafts were bought instead of 126?
- Why was a bankrupt Anil Ambani’s Rafale Defence Ltd. given a ₹30,000 Crore contract instead of PSU HAL?
UPA Govt’s Rafale deal would’ve ensured India received 126 jets instead of just 36 as purchased by the BJP led government. In UPA’s deal 108 Rafale jets would have been made in India and we would have received the Rafale jets by as early as 2016. Cost of each Rafale jet would have been ₹526 crore per fighter instead of ₹1670 crore per fighter.
It is important to be remember that former French President François Hollande’s in his statement to a French news website Mediapart had mentioned that Reliance was proposed by the Indian government and the French did not have a choice in the matter. Reliance Defence Ltd was registered in March 2015, only weeks before Mr. Modi’s visit to France. Reliance Aerostructure was registered on April 24. The offset guidelines were amended in August 2015, weeks after scrapping the negotiations for 126 aircraft.
When allegations of corruption in the Rafale deal reached the Supreme Court, KK Venugopal, Attorney General of India or the highest ranking law officer of the Central Government, told the court that “confidential files related to the Rafale deal were stolen from the office of the Ministry of Defense”.
Even after one year of the theft, the contract and documents for the purchase of the warplane from the office of the Ministry of Defense could not be found.
Despite seeing, hearing and knowing all this, it is unfortunate that the Chief Justice who gave a clean chit to the king became a member of the Rajya Sabha supported by BJP.
BJP Govt tries to evade the questions by ignoring or by diverting attention with another new news or through their supporting media houses. How much ever Govt tries to keep it aside, these will always remain as doubt worthy in common man’s mind which can’t be erased until Govt comes out transparent.
