Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday joined the Congress to embarrass the Centre’s Narendra Modi government on the alleged scam in the Rafale fighter jets deal with France.
Taking to Twitter, Kejriwal wrote, “The people of this country want to know- Who pocketed the money made from the Rafale scam?”
देश की जनता जानना चाहती है – राफ़ेल घोटाले का पैसा किसकी जेब में गया?
— Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) September 8, 2018
Experts say that this is the first time any non-Congress party has launched an attack on the government on the Rafale scam, which was first exposed by Janta Ka Reporter in its three-party expose last year. (You can read them here Part 1 and Part 2 and Part 3).
In our expose, we had highlighted how the Modi government had junked the previous deal struck between the then UPA government and the French company Dassault Aviation to strike a new deal, which was considerably more expensive.
Key grounds that the Modi government allegedly lost to in the new deal was forgoing the clause on transfer of technology, while agreeing to pay nearly three times more money for each aircraft.
Another contentious point under the news deal was the joint venture struck between Anil Ambani’s newly formed defence company and Dassault Aviation. Under the old deal, being negotiated by the UPA government, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, was to get the contract for manufacturing the aircraft in India. The HAL has years of experience in manufacturing fighter jets.
The Congress-led UPA government had planned to buy 126 jets in accordance with the urgent requirement of the Air Force. The Modi government had unilaterally decided to bring down the numbers to just 36.
The Congress has accused the Modi government of doing away with the old deal primarily to promote crony capitalism as the new deal allegedly favoured the prime minister’s businessman friend, Anil Ambani.
The junior Ambani has threatened to file defamation case against the Congress party and has already served ‘cease and desist’ notices to several Congress spokespersons. Congress President Rahul Gandhi had recently told reporters in Delhi that Modi was lying on the Rafale deal.