‘Congress welcome to raise the issue in Parl, no scam there’
NEW DELHI: The Congress is welcome to raise the Rafale deal in the upcoming leg of the Budget session, defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Saturday, but asserted there were no irregularities in the pact with France to buy 36 fighter planes.
She was responding to a question on the likelihood of Congress raising the issue in Parliament. The Congress has raised questions about the $8.7 billion deal, alleging corruption and violation of procedures. “Don’t even compare it with Bofors. There is no scam here,” Sitharaman said, referring to an alleged scam during a previous Congress government over the purchase of 410 howitzer guns from Swedish arms manufacturer Bofors.
India floated a global tender for 126 planes more than a decade ago but it stood cancelled after PM Narendra Modi declared in April 2015 that India would buy 36 Rafale jets from France under a government-to-government deal.
The Indian Air Force is looking at inducting the fighters by 2022 to bolster its combat capability. The NDA government has accused the Congress of “manufacturing” corruption charges against it by questioning the Rafale deal.
The Congress has asked government to reveal the purchase price of each aircraft but the Centre has said details cannot be disclosed as there is a clause on “classified information” in the inter-governmental agreement.
Responding to a question on the situation along the Line of Control, Sitharaman said India has been able to contain infiltrators from coming in to a large extent and that’s why “more skirmishes” were taking place. “We are not allowing them (militants) to come in,” she said.
On the locally-built Tejas light combat aircraft, she said the government wanted Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) to ramp up production of the fighters and deliver the upgraded Mk-II version at the earliest.