Congress president Rahul Gandhi accompanied former Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh to call on the visiting French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday even as the principal Opposition party carried on an aggressive campaign against the purchase of the 36 French made Rafale fighter jets.
Mr. Gandhi posted on Twitter about the meeting, and added a photograph. “Yesterday, I met with French President Emmanuel Macron. We discussed a range of issues common to our liberal democracies, including fake news,” he tweeted.
The Congress at a briefing, however, said that their party chief regularly meets dignitaries in “national interest.”
“Congress presidents is always meet the visiting Heads of States for Indian National Congress has a long history of maintaining a relationship with visiting Heads of the State in national interest.... As far as Rafale deal is concerned, it has 6 serious flaws which goes to the root of the matter and is pointing towards a brewing scam in procurement of aircrafts and compromise of national security,"said Randeep Surjewala, Congress' communication head.
The Congress claimed that while the Defence Minister refused to disclose the price of the Rafale deal, the French plane maker — Dassault Aviation — in its annual report of 2016 and 2017 say that the company sold 36 Rafale aircraft for 7$.5 Billion or ₹1,670 Crore per aircraft.
“They had sold the same aircraft 11 months earlier in 2015 to Egypt and Qatar at ₹1,319 crore per aircraft. There is a clear cut loss of ₹12,632 crore to the State exchequer,” said Mr. Surjewala.
The Congress also said the government will have to answer why the deal was signed without taking the prior clearance from the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS).
“Why did Prime Minister bypass the Defence Procurement Procedure which looks at price discovery through contract negotiation committee and price negotiation committee and nobody — I repeat nobody — in this country can violate that principle. Why did the Prime Minister bypass that Cabinet Committee on Security and not take its prior approval?” asked the Congress spokesperson.
