The Rafale deal is being dubbed by the Congress as the biggest scam of the Modi government. Rafale is a multi-role combat aircraft manufactured by the French company Dassault Aviation and the proposal to procure these advance jet fighters for revamping the Indian Air Force fleet was initiated when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister. It picked momentum during the tenure of the UPA but could not be fully materialised and it was only when the NDA came to power that the two countries announced a government-to-government deal to acquire 36 Rafale jets during PM Modi’s visit to France in 2015.
The proposal was presented to the Defence Acquisition Council and after receiving the cabinet nod the deal was signed in 2016. As per the Inter-Governmental Agreement the supplier company had to choose an Indian counterpart under the Make in India policy for the manufacture of some parts of the aircraft and the Anil Ambani-led Reliance Defence was chosen. The Congress was unconvinced and the matter was raised in the Parliament that the deal was grossly overvalued and that it was tainted by crony capitalism. The Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman clarified that the deal was a classified information and could not be disclosed, which was further supplemented by the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley during the debate on Budget saying that disclosing the price of defence deal would reveal sensitive information about the aircraft and further asserted that even the Congress government had refrained from such disclosures.
However the recent remarks by the former French President Francois Hollande stating in an interview to a French news channel that India suggested Reliance Defence as the offset partner for the deal and that they had no choice, has added ammunition to the political slugfest with Rahul Gandhi calling Modi ‘Commander in Thief’.
But immediately thereafter the ruling French government has distanced itself from Holland’s remarks and clarified that in no way the government is involved in the choice of Indian industrial partner and that the French companies alone have the freedom to do so. Next Dassault Aviation the manufacturer of Rafale jets has also stated that it was purely their choice to choose the Reliance group as partner. Above all Hollande has now clarified that he is unsure if the government has lobbied for Reliance and that the partners have chosen themselves. Aren’t we back to square one then?
