France Ambassador to India busts Congress’ lie on Rafale deal

Another false claim by left-liberal media establishment on Rafale deal has been busted by the French government. In a major embarrassment for the Congress and the opposition, Ambassador of France to India, Alexander Ziegler, dismissed reports of France buying new Rafale fighters at a lower cost.

National Herald, the mouthpiece of Congress party, published a story claiming that Dassault Aviation delivered fighter aircraft to the French government on the half price of that to India. “To the acute discomfiture of the Government, reports emerged on Tuesday, January 15 that the French Government had signed an agreement with Dassault, manufacturers of the Rafale fighter planes, for 28 Rafale planes at the cost of 2.3 billion Euros,” wrote Herald.

But these claims were denied by the Ambassador of France to India. Zeigler tweeted, “France did not announce yesterday any new aircraft acquisition order! The amount you’re referring to will finance solely the development of the new F4 standard for the Rafale. The 28 aircrafts remaining to be delivered to the French Air Force are part of previous acquisition contracts.” 

When asked about the controversy on Rafale deal, “My very short and simple answer to that is, just look at the facts and not at the tweets,” said Ziegler on the sidelines of an event. He also pointed out that offset contract worth Rs. 30,000 crore would benefit Make in India and many companies including HAL will be part of this. “That is huge [amount] and there will be room for hundreds of companies, including HAL, which has had a very fruitful historical cooperation with French companies,” said Ziegler.

Prashant Bhushan, the lawyer-activist who turned out to be overnight defense expert after Rafale controversy tweeted on overpricing by the company to the Indian government. “What?!! The French govt is buying an improved version of the Rafales at 2 B Euro for 28 aircraft. As against this, Modi bought 36 Rafales for 7.87 B! That is > 2.5x/aircraft paid by France. We have been looted to pay 30KCr Commission to Ambani as offset!” tweeted Bhushan.

Congress party and its leaders are hell bent on defaming the Rafale deal. Lutyens’ media is trying hard to prove that the Rafale deal was a scam despite every allegation being bunked. Moreover, there are various reasons for the media to be apprehensive about the Rafale deal. First, they have not received any favors this time, secondly,  middlemen in defense deals who are close to the ‘family’ have become the thing of past and at last, family’s interests have not been served in the Rafale deal.

Congress-led opposition and its cronies in the media are spreading lies about the deal. The opposition disregards all the facts presented by the defense ministry, credible defense experts, French government and the Dassault itself. 

The Congress-led opposition and left-liberal media establishment misled people repeatedly over Rafale deal. The opposition raised primarily two concerns about the deal, the first being the price of the deal which Congress claimed is substantially higher than the previous deal negotiated by UPA government. The second being why Anil Ambani led Reliance Defence was preferred over state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). The second issue has already been cleared by the Rafale and Defence ministry that Dassault Aviation was free to choose offset partners and government has no interference in it. On the first one, almost all defense experts said the pricing is as per market rates.