Reliance Defence Ltd. Chief executive Rajesh Dhingra spoke to the media recently regarding the Rafale-Dassault deal it had made. In the long interview, he replied to queries ranging from lack of experience to government owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) being stepped over in favour of the Reliance owned company. The Reliance Defence Ltd. Chief clarified in response to a query that “Reliance Defence or any other Reliance group company has not received any contract from the MoD till date, related to 36 Rafale aircraft. This is absolutely unfounded and incorrect.” He elaborated further that the Reliance Group had received the Rafale fighter jet deal from Dassault Aviation SA and not from the Indian Ministry of Defence. He also clarified that the French aviation firm had chosen Reliance Defence to meet the export obligations in the contract. These statements of the Reliance Defence executives rubbish the claims made by Rahul Gandhi and his team who had termed the Rafale deal as a scam by the BJP government.
Negation of any role of the Ministry of Defence from the deal between Dassault and Reliance clears all charges levied against the central government by the Congress members. The Chief executive of Reliance Defence Ltd. further clarified that HAL had not been offered a partnership since the 36 Rafale fighter jets will be delivered in a “fly-away” condition to India. Since there is no provision related to any kind of production at any stage related to the Rafale fighter jet which is scheduled to take place in India, therefore HAL could not be involved in the deal. Dhingra said, “HAL or anyone else cannot be the production agency for the simple reason that no aircraft are to be produced in India.” Dhingra further rubbished the claims that Reliance Defence had received the contracts because of Ambani’s closeness with PM Modi and BJP. He explained “As per the defence procurement procedure (DPP), ministry of defence has no role in the selection of Indian partners by the foreign vendors. This has been the position right from 2005 when offsets were first introduced in the country.”
The truth of the matter is that despite multiple allegations levied on the incumbent government by Congress and its leaders there is no hard evidence to support their baseless claims. Reliance group is a great brand name which was deemed fit by the Dassault aviation to enter a contract with. With the size of the infrastructure and capital which Reliance possesses today, Dassault must have seen it as a favourable move to make ties with an already established name in the country. Crony capitalism, as claimed by Rahul Gandhi and the people from Congress, existed during the period when Robert Vadra benefited from land deals in North India where Congress ruled. Two private companies joining hands to smoothen the process of business does not make it a case of crony capitalism contrary to what Rahul claims.
It would now be interesting to see how Rahul Gandhi and the Congress would react after their claims have been busted by the press interview of the Reliance Defence Ltd. official. Dassault has already laid to rest all the other allegations related to comparative cost of the deal and deal package. With this matter too going to an early grave there is nothing which the Congress has right now to attack PM Modi and the BJP government.
