Documents reveal that Modi govt saved Rs. 27,000 crores in Rafale deal

The Congress and its president, Rahul Gandhi have been lying relentlessly in connection with the Rafale deal. The party president Rahul Gandhi has been trying to invent all possible allegations in order to corner the Modi government over the claims of wrongdoing in the Rafale deal. Even though the Supreme Court dismissed all the petitions for a Court-monitored probe into the Rafale deal, the Congress led by its president Rahul Gandhi has not stopped making baseless allegations in connection with the Rafale deal.

In the month of October last year, the Congress had drawn CAG Rajiv Mehrishi’s attention towards the issue of certain alleged wrongdoings in connection with the Rafale deal. It had approached the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) and strongly reiterated the demand of a CAG Audit into the Rafale deal. With the Supreme Court having already dismissed all the petitions demanding an investigation into the Rafale deal, and now the CAG report on the Rafale deal set to be tabled before the Parliament, the controversy around the Rafale deal should have ended for all practical purposes.

However, Congress has made a sharp U-turn and has tried to rake up another superficial issue in order to somehow keep the Rafale debate alive. The Congress has now started claiming, without any evidence, as it always has in the case of Rafale deal, that the CAG Rajiv Mehrishi who was the Finance Secretary at the time when the Rafale deal was signed is involved in the deal. Congress leader Sibal accused the present CAG of having been “complicit” in the “irregularities” in the said deal. The Congress is now demanding that the CAG should recuse himself from auditing and submitting a report on the Rafale deal. It is amply clear that the Congress is doing all this in order to discredit the report that is going to be tabled. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley rejected these charges of conflict of interest and said, “I say this without fear of contradiction that no file or paper relating to the Rafale transaction ever reached him nor was he in any way, directly or indirectly, associated with the decision making on defence purchases.” 

The Congress may keep lying on the Rafale deal. But its fake allegations and lies of wrongdoing and loss to the public exchequer in connection with the deal have been exposed yet again. This time around journalist Sushant Sinha has tweeted that Ashish Singh, Editor-Strategic Affairs, NewsX has gained exclusive access to documents submitted by the Indian Air Force (IAF) to CAG that show how the Modi government saved Rs. 27,000 crores in the Rafale deal. This not only refutes the ridiculous and baseless allegations and lies made by Congress president Rahul Gandhi but also goes on to show the Modi government acted in a really fair manner and ensured that the deal was truly profitable for India.

As per the said documents, India gained a commercial advantage due to changeover from Firm and Fixed Cost under the 126 MMRCA (Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft competition) proposal to indices based cost method for the deal of 36 Rafale jets. Under the 126 MMRCA proposal, the price was firm and fixed and computed at an annual escalation rate of 3.9%. However, a decision was taken to finalise the deal for 36 Rafale aircrafts at 2015 price levels on the basis of indices based escalation. The upper cap was taken as 3.5%. Therefore, contrary to the lies and claims of the Congress, the NDA government succeeded in securing a much more profitable deal.

This actually nails the lies of the Congress on pricing in the Rafale deal in a big way. However, since Congress has decided not to argue logically about the deal, one can expect them to dispute this as well. The levels to which the grand old party has stooped in order to corner the BJP in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls, it will not come as a surprise if the Congress starts hurling allegations at the IAF also in order to keep the Rafale debate alive. A party which can drag a constitutional body like the CAG into its political blame game can go down to any level.