Former BJP Ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie on Tuesday alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was “personally culpable” for bypassing every rule of defence procurement and “compromising national security” while finalising the Rafale deal.
Activist-lawyer, Prashant Bhushan, who jointly addressed the media at the Press Club of India, accused the government of using “serving officers to tell lies in order to defend the Rafale deal”, and wondered if Ministers who were writing blogs on the deal would make the same arguments in an affidavit.
“National security has been compromised by the Prime Minister and every rule of the defence procurement flouted to unilaterally reduce the number of planes from 126 to 36. As per DPP (defence procurement procedure), only the Service headquarters can decide on the numbers,” said Mr. Shourie.
“Every explanation they put out ensnares the government in the web of lies they have spun. This means they have a lot to hide,” he claimed. Mr. Shourie said the Prime Minister had no authority to overturn the UPA deal that took seven to eight years of negotiations.
