Dassault gave Reliance ₹284 cr to secure Rafale deal: Rahul
NEWDELHI: French aircraft manufacturer Dassault gave Anil Ambani’s Reliance Defence ₹284 crore as the “first installment of kickbacks” in order to secure the deal for Rafale fighter jets, Congress president Rahul Gandhi alleged on Friday.
Addressing a news conference at the Congress headquarters in Delhi, Gandhi said Prime Minister Narendra Modi “will not survive if the huge corruption” in the purchase of fighter jets was investigated even as he also blamed the Dassault CEO.
Ambani’s Reliance Infrastructure said the Congress’s allegations were “blatant lies”. “It is deeply unfortunate that the Reliance Group and its chairman, Mr Anil Ambani, are continuously being dragged into a political battle in view of the impending state and general elections in the country,” a spokesperson said.
The company added that Dassault’s investment in Reliance Airport Developers Limited, which is the Rs 284 crore referred to by Gandhi, had no links with the Rafale deal.
“The Prime Minister is having sleepless nights. He has lost his sleep because of tension. He knows he will be caught,” Gandhi said. Gandhi said Dassault CEO Eric Trappier had cited non- availability of land as the reason for not giving the offset contract to the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). “He had stated that the contract was given to Anil Ambani because he had land. Now, it turns out that Ambani had purchased the land with the money he got from Dassault,” the Congress chief said.
The comments are in keeping with the Congress’s line of attack on the government for its decision to enter an $8.7 billion government-to-government deal to buy 36 Rafale warplanes made by Dassault, which was announced in April 2015. This deal, signed a year later, replaced the previous United Progressive Alliance regime’s decision to buy 126 Rafale aircraft, 108 of which were to be made in India by the stateowned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. The Congress claims the earlier deal was scrapped and a new one signed just to provide Ambani an opportunity for an offset deal. Both the government and Reliance have repeatedly denied this. Reliance, which is one of many companies to benefit from the deal, formed a joint venture with Dassault for the same.
“HAL has more land that is available here. Why is Dassault CEO lying? Who is he trying to protect? There is only one person the Dassault CEO is protecting and that is the person who runs this country. That is Narendra Modi,” Gandhi said on Friday.
A Dassault representative was not available for comment. Representatives of the government or the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party did not respond to requests for a comment. Reliance also said that it had already acquired the land by the time it entered into a partnership with Dassault.
Gandhi also linked the controversy at the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to the alleged wrongdoing on the Rafale deal.
“Obviously, the CBI chief was looking at these papers. It is obvious that there is enough material in the public domain to nail Shri Modi and the CBI chief was removed. So, clearly it is a cover up taking place.” His reference was to CBI director Alok Verma being sent on leave along with the agency’s second senior-most officer, special director Rakesh Asthana, after the two accused each other of corruption.
The Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) on Friday suffered a jolt when party chief Om Prakash Chautala ordered the expulsion of his grandsons, Dushyant Chautala and Digvijay Chautala, from primary membership of the party.
The two were accused of indiscipline, hooliganism and spreading disaffection within the party during the birthday celebrations of former deputy prime minister and their great-grandfather, Devi Lal, on October 7. Dushyant, a first-time Lok Sabha MP from Hisar, is the elder son of jailed INLD leader Ajay Singh Chautala. Digvijay is Dushyant’s younger brother.
The events of October 7 and the subsequent defiant stance of the brothers were seen as a challenge to the party hierarchy, especially the leadership of their uncle, Abhay Singh Chautala. Abhay, the leader of the opposition and face of the party since his father, OP Chautala, and elder brother, Ajay Chautala, were jailed for 10 years in a teacher recruitment scam in 2013, was not acceptable to the two brothers who looked desperate to carve space at the top for themselves.
POLITICAL RAMIFICATIONS
The expulsion of Chautala’s grandsons from the INLD will have far-reaching political ramifications and could actually lead to divisions in the party’s rank and file. The development does not augur well for the party in view of the November-december assembly elections and the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
The action against the two will also have a bearing on the future of their mother and INLD legislator from Dabwali, Naina Chautala, who looked displeased at the initiation of disciplinary action against her sons and accused opponents within the INLD of plotting against them. While the stance of jailed INLD leader Ajay Chautala on the issue is not known, the punitive action against his sons surely will not go down well with him.
‘I WAS WITNESS TO INDISCIPLINE’
Both Dushyant and Digvijay were suspended from the primary membership of the party and served show-cause notices last month after their supporters booed the top INLD leadership at the October 7 Gohana rally.
Ordering their expulsion from LNJP hospital in Delhi, INLD chief Chautala on Friday said he did not need any outside evidence since he was a witness to the indiscipline and unruly scenes at Gohana. Chautala said he was also continuously interrupted during his address – he was then on parole -- on that day. “I still had referred the matter to the disciplinary action committee of the party. The committee concluded that both are guilty as charged,” Chautala said in a statement. Earlier, the party chief had also dissolved the youth wing of the INLD and party’s student arm, Indian National Students’ Organisation (INSO). But his actions to rein in his two grandsons did not bring the desired results. The two continued to remain defiant. Dushyant demanded evidence on the basis of which he was suspended from the party.
‘NOT AN EASY DECISION’
The INLD chief said since Dushyant and Digvijay are members of his family, it was not an easy decision for him to order their expulsion. “But all my life, I followed the principles and ideals of Chaudhary Devi Lal for whom the party was always bigger than an individual. Thus, I had to make a choice between the party and my family members,” Chautala said in a statement.