Modi govt refutes Congress' allegations on Rafale fighter jet deal

Official sources said Rajeev Verma proceeded in September 2016 for a one-week training programme - and not on leave as 'mischievously' alleged in the report

The Narendra Modi government on Thursday rejected Congress party’s allegations that laid down procedures were not followed in the Rafale fighter jet deal, and a bureaucrat who had flagged the benchmark price of the deal was sent on forced leave.

At a press conference, Congress leader S Jaipal Reddy said then joint secretary and acquisition manager (Air) in the defence ministry Rajeev Verma had raised questions about the benchmark price of the Rafale fighter jet. Reddy, and also Congress chief Rahul Gandhi in a tweet, cited an Indian Express report on the subject.

Official sources dismissed media reports as well as allegations by Congress leaders. They said the newspaper report suffered from several “factual errors”. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the official was a signatory to the final note on the agreement which was presented to the Union Cabinet for approval in August 2016. “The note that was presented to the Cabinet had the signature of the official. At the time of discussions, there may be divergent views which are recorded. But at the end, a decision is taken collectively,” Sitharaman told India Today news channel.

Official sources said Verma proceeded in September 2016 for a one-week training programme - and not on leave as “mischievously” alleged in the report. Verma also told a news channel that he had visited Cambridge University for the training programme, which had been planned much in advance.

Congress leader Reddy said Verma raised objections about the price of jets and put his objections on record, which caused delays in the preparation of the Cabinet note on the deal. According to the newspaper report, the official was part of the Contract Negotiations Committee (CNC) for the deal, and the signing of the Cabinet note happened only after his objections were “overruled” by another senior official in the ministry. Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said the official who overruled Verma’s objections was subsequently rewarded by being made a member of the Union Public Service Commission.

Reddy said Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi had announced the procurement of a batch of 36 Rafale jets after talks with the then French president François Hollande on April 10, 2015, in Paris. The final deal was sealed on September 23, 2016. He said it was the first instance of a deal being ratified by the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) after it had been signed.

Government sources said the Defence Acquisition Council had accepted the necessity for the acquisition of aircraft and mandated the CNC to go ahead. Following the stipulated process, the CCS approved the acquisition on August 24, 2016, and not in September 2016 - as erroneously claimed in the media report, official sources said.

Reddy alleged that French President Emmanuel Macron did not contradict Hollande’s claim on the Rafale deal. “The Rafale scam has begun to stink and the Modi-led government has begun to sink,” Reddy said.

“It is for the first time that the present French President Macron while answering a specific question avoided the question. He simply said I was not in charge at that time. In other words, he did not contradict the version of former French president Hollande,” Reddy said.

“The point we would like to highlight is this consistent non-contradiction by the current French authorities which is absolutely tantamount to confirmation on the facts mentioned by the former president,” Reddy said. “The non-contraction by the current president of France is equivalent to an international revelation,” he said.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders, including Prakash Javadekar and others, asked Congress chief Rahul Gandhi to explain how documents related to the Rafale deal being negotiated by the United Progressive Alliance government found their way in the house of a friend, a defence dealer, of his brother-in-law Robert Vadra.

BJP President Amit Shah lauded Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Sharad Pawar for saying that people do not doubt the PM’s intentions in the Rafale deal, and asked Rahul Gandhi to believe his own ally who has put “national interests above party politics”. NCP Spokesperson Nawab Malik said his party chief Pawar has not given any clean chit to the PM.