The Rafale deal controversy reemerged on Saturday, with the Congress and the BJP sparring over news reports that claimed the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) "dropped" an audit over the aircraft's offset deal. The report claimed CAG submitted its performance audit on defence offset contracts to the Centre with no mention of any offset deals related to the purchase of the fighter aircraft.
After the Congress attacks, claiming that money has been stolen from the public exchequer, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the report on offset performance will be tabled in the Parliament.
Congress MP Rahul Gandhi had tagged a news report in an acerbic tweet aimed at the Centre. One of the reports quoted "people involved with the audit" to claim that "the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has informed the federal auditor that Dassault Aviation, French manufacturer of Rafale, has said that it will share any details of its offset partners only after three years of the contract." "MoD has denied any information related to the Rafale offset deals to the audit," the report said.
The NDA government had inked a Rs 59,000-crore deal in 2016 to procure 36 Rafale jets from French aerospace major Dassault Aviation after a nearly seven-year exercise to procure 126 Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) for the Indian Air Force did not fructify during the UPA regime. India last month received its first batch of Rafales.
The Congress has been accusing massive irregularities in the deal, alleging that the government was procuring each aircraft at a cost of over Rs 1,670 crore as against Rs 526 crore finalised by the UPA government. Under India's offset policy, foreign defence entities are mandated to spend at least 30 per cent of the total contract value in India through procurement of components or setting up of research and development facilities. The Congress has also alleged the government was benefitting the Reliance Defence Ltd (RDL) through the deal as the company has set up a joint venture with Dassault Aviation to execute the offset obligation for the Rs 59,000 crore deal. The party alleged Reliance Defence was formed just 12 days before the announcement of the Rafale deal by the prime minister on April 10, 2015. The RDL has rejected all the charges.
"Money was stolen from the Indian exchequer in Rafale," Gandhi alleged in his tweet without elaborating, and also quoted Mahatma Gandhi's words: "Truth is one, paths are many".
In a sharp retort, Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal claimed that many in the Congress had confided that Gandhi's obsession with Rafale is damaging the party. "Many of Rahul Gandhi's Congress colleagues confide in private that Rahul's obsession with Rafale to wash off his father's sins is damaging the party. But if someone is wanting to self-destruct, who are we to complain? We invite him to fight the 2024 elections on Rafale," Goyal tweeted.
Meanwhile, Sitharaman also asserted that the CAG report on Defence Offset Performance will be tabled in the forthcoming session of Parliament and the contents will be known only after that.
"The CAG report on defences offset performance was scheduled to be tabled in Parliament during the budget session (2020). The session ended, before date, due to COVID-19. Now the report will be placed in the next session. The contents will be known only after that," Sitharaman said in a series of tweets. Observing that the first Rafale fighter jet was handed over to India in October 2019, the minister said there was year-wise phasing of how much offset obligation the companies/OEMs (original equipment manufacturer) have to fulfil. "MoD [Ministry of Defence] informs me that claims of such obligations being fulfilled are coming in."
Tagging the media report which was cited by Gandhi, CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury tweeted, "Now the CAG! Can any Constitutional authority remain independent under this Modi government? Rise in defence of the Indian Constitution." Several other Congress leaders, including spokesperson Pawan Khera, attacked the government over the media report.
The political controversy relating to the deal peaked in the run up to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and during the campaign Gandhi had launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Congress had lost the polls with the BJP getting a massive mandate.
-Inputs from PTI