Rafales: A saga of political dogfight, apex court drama

New Delhi, July 29: The touchdown of five Rafale jets on Indian soil on Wednesday caps years of intense political dogfight, with the ruling BJP projecting the purchase as a huge boost to national security and the Congress alleging corruption, before a clean chit by the Supreme Court to the deal removed any hurdle in its acquisition.

Senior BJP leaders were jubilant as the multirole combat jets arrived at the Ambala airbase, but this denouement marked by celebrations follows a long saga of political fights, with detractors of the deal taking their battle to the apex court and losing it there.

Even the Supreme Court’s dismissal in December 2018 of PILs demanding a court-monitored probe into the `59,000 crore purchase of 36 fighter jets and assertion that it found nothing wrong in the deal, could not douse the political fire as the then Congress president Rahul Gandhi made his allegations of graft in the transaction a poll issue in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

The BJP led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi accused the Opposition of compromising national interest by making “baseless” corruption charges and asserted that the French aircraft will bolster Indian Air Force capabilities manifold in a hostile neighbourhood.

Most political observers believe that Mr Gandhi’s charges did not find much traction with voters as the saffron alliance retained power at the Centre with a bigger mandate, taking the wind out of the Opposition’s sails in its campaign against the deal.

The political row had erupted after the NDA government inked the `59,000-crore deal on September 23, 2016, to procure 36 Rafale jets from French aerospace major Dassault Aviation after a nearly seven-year exercise to procure 126 Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft for the Indian Air Force did not fructify during the Congress-led UPA regime.

The emergency acquisition was made primarily to check the depleting combat capability of the IAF as the number of its fighter squadrons had come down to a worrying 31 against the authorised strength of at least 42.

However, Opposition parties, primarily the Congress, accused the Modi government of bypassing the due process and alleged that the cost per aircraft had turned out to be much more than what was being negotiated by the UPA dispensation.

THE EMERGENCY acquisition was made primarily to check the depleting combat capability of the IAF as the number of its fighter squadrons had come down to a worrying 31 against the authorised strength of at least 42