Cong presses CVC for case on Rafale

NEWDELHI/LUCKNOW/AMETHI: DEFENCE MINISTER NIRMALA SITHARAMAN SAID THE ENTIRE RAFALE ISSUE IS A ‘PERCEPTION BATTLE’ AND SAID THE GOVT WOULD GO TO PLACES AND STATE FACTS ON RECORD

A delegation of senior Congress leaders met the central vigilance commissioner (CVC) on Monday and demanded registration of a corruption case in the Rafale fighter jet deal. However, Union defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman hit back the Congress, terming the controversial issue as a “perception battle”.

The delegation of Ghulam Nabi Azad, Ahmed Patel, Anand Sharma, Kapil Sibal, Randeep Singh Surjewala, Jairam Ramesh, and Abhishek Manu Singhvi, among others, met CVC KV Chowdary and submitted a detailed memorandum, accusing the government of causing loss to the public exchequer and endangering national security by bypassing state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) in favour of some businessman “friends” for offset contract.

“Rafale scam has now emerged as India’s biggest defence scam. Tracks of corruption are getting unravelled by the day with repeated disclosures getting no answers from the defence ministry of the government of the day. The stench of corruption and cronyism in the Rafale deal is nauseating, requiring urgent intervention by your goodself,” the Congress memorandum to the CVC stated.

The memorandum said that as per law, the government is bound to provide full information to the Central Vigilance Commission, “entire deal, its contours, nature of contract, absence of favouritism, corruption, crony capitalism, violation of law and procedures and the principles of level playing field are part of CVC’s domain to examine and to return a finding”.

“The government is bound to disclose the price of 36 aircraft to scrutiny by the CVC in light of the serious allegations of corruption and loss of money to public exchequer.

“We, therefore, request the CVC to undertake its statutory duty by examining record threadbare, so that corruption, crony capitalism, violation of law and procedure and loss to public exchequer is brought out as the earliest,” it further said.

Vowing to fight the Rafale deal tussle, Sitharaman said, “This is a perception battle. We’ll go to places and state facts on record on Rafale. Congress designs to run a smear campaign against us at an international level. This is an attempt to malign our reputation.”

Singhvi, after submitting the memorandum to the CVC, told reporters that there are no answers with the government to various questions raised on the deal and no one is telling why the whole procedure took place in a reverse order. “Why was a contract of ₹30,000 crore given to a company that is on the verge of bankruptcy? How can they sideline a company like HAL?” he said.