Row on parallel Rafale talks rocks Parliament

SLUGFEST Congress cites report to hit out at PM; Oppn flogging dead horse: govt

NEW DELHI: A fresh political firestorm broke out on Friday over a report that the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) had conducted parallel talks with the French government over the ₹59,000-crore Rafale jet fighter deal and had prompted the Union ministry of defence (MOD) to protest that the PMO was undermining India’s negotiating position.

Both houses of Parliament were rocked by Opposition protests over the newspaper report, which defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman dismissed as “flogging a dead horse,” saying periodic inquiries by the PMO “cannot be construed as interference”. In a statement in the Lok Sabha, she said the opposition parties were playing into the hands of multinational companies and vested interests.

Members of the Congress, Trinamool Congress and the TDP strode to the well of the house, chanting slogans and showing placards referring to the report. Opposition members shouted slogans demanding that Prime Minister Narendra Modi resign.

The report handed fresh ammunition to the Opposition to attack Modi’s National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government ahead of 2019 general elections. The controversial defence deal, together with agrarian unrest, unemployment, and the alleged undermining of institu--

tions such as the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Reserve Bank of India are at the heart of the Opposition campaign.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi reiterated his demand for a JPC probe of the Rafale deal and used the report, published in The Hindu, to step up his attack on Modi.

“Now, we have been saying now for more than a year that the Prime Minister is directly involved in the Rafale scam. Now today, in The Hindu Newspaper, it is black and white — it is absolutely black and white that the Prime Minister himself was carrying

out a parallel negotiation with the French,” Gandhi told reporters.

The newspaper report cited a November 24, 2015 defence ministry note to then defence minister Manohar Parrikar as saying that “we may advise the PMO that any officers who are not part of the Indian Negotiating Team (INT) may refrain from having parallel parlays (parleys) with the officers of French government.”

The note said that the details of the parallel negotiations conducted by the PMO had come to the defence ministry’s notice

from an October 23, 2015 letter from General Stephen Reb, the head of the French negotiating team. “...In case the PMO is not confident about the outcome of negotiations being carried out by the MoD, a revised modality of negotiations led by PMO at appropriate level may be adopted in the case,” it added.

Sitharaman noted that the newspaper had published a file noting written by then defence secretary G Mohan Kumar that read: “It is desirable that such discussions be avoided by the PMO as it undermines our negotiating position seriously.”