Defence minister Sitharaman issues 5-point rebuttal of Rafale accusations

The minister was unable to address media queries about how much the government was paying for 36 Rafales, compared to what the UPA government had negotiated

Underlining the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) unease at the Congress party’s allegations of wrongdoing by the National Democratic Alliance(NDA) government in the Rs. 58,000-crore purchase of 36 Rafale fighters last year from Dassault, a French company, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman led a counter-attack on Friday.

Flanked by Defence Secretary Sanjay Mitra and Indian Air Force (IAF) procurement chief, Air Vice Marshal Rathunath Nambiar, Sitharaman lashed out at the Congress on five counts.

First, she stated, the previous BJP government had, as early as 2000, “recognised the need to strengthen the IAF,” leading to procurement being initiated for 126 medium multirole