Truth has won, says BJP; Cong calls it eyewash
NEW DELHI: The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday offered up the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) report on the Rafale deal tabled in Parliament Wednesday as another vindication of its stand that the transaction was above board. The Congress predictably dismissed it as a cover-up.
“Satyameva Jayate” [truth alone triumphs] was the instant reaction of cabinet minister Arun Jaitley to CAG report. Congress president Rahul Gandhi said the report was “not worth the paper” it was printed on.
The CAG report said the deal signed by the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was 2.86% cheaper. than the one negotiated by its predecessor, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA). Gandhi has claimed in the past that the price at which India is buying Rafale aircraft now is ~1,670 crore for each, three times the ~526 crore initial bid by the company when the UPA government was trying to buy the warplanes.
Jaitley tweeted: “Satyameva Jayate – the truth shall prevail. The CAG Report on Rafale reaffirms the dictum”. He said the deal finalised by the Modi regime incorporated a “lower price, faster delivery, better maintenance, lower escalation”.
In one of his tweets, he took a swipe at Gandhi’s “Chowkidar Auditor General” barb at the CAG that was made on Tuesday even before its report was tabled in the House. Jaitley said, “It cannot be that the Supreme Court is wrong, the CAG is wrong and only the dynast is right”.
It was a reference to the fact that in December, the Supreme Court dismissed petitions seeking a court-monitored probe into the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets by the Narendra Modi government, saying there was no reason to doubt that due process was followed in the ~59,000 crore purchase. The court said it wasn’t its job to compare pricing details.
Jaitley said “the lies of ‘Mahajhootbandhan’ stand exposed by the CAG Report,” adding: “How does democracy punish those who consistently lied to the nation?” Mahajhootbandhan loosely translates as grand alliance of liars, a pun on mahaghatbandhan (grand alliance) proposed by opposition parties to take on the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the coming general election.
Gandhi adopted a combative approach to the CAG report on the audit of 11 acquisitions by the Indian Air Force, including the Rafale deal. He said the report was “not worth the paper” as it did not take into account a purported dissent note by the Indian negotiating team.
“Even if we consider CAG’s report to be correct, it says price reduced by 2.8%. It still nails the lies told in Parliament by the defence minister, prime minister and the finance minister where they stated it was between 9-20%,” he said.
At a late evening press conference, BJP leader and law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said Gandhi had lied about the deal. “We never imagined Indira Gandhi’s grandson and Rajiv Gandhi’s son will lie so shamelessly,” he told reporters. “BJP demands that Rahul apologise as SC [Supreme Court] order and CAG report on Rafale jet deal have exposed his lies,” he said.
Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said the CAG report was an “eyewash”. “Even the manufactured figure of 2.86% cheaper by CAG is horribly fake and false,” he said.
Surjewala said: “CAG Report clearly records that ‘Performance Guarantee and Warranty’, as offered by Dassault Aviation in the 2007 Contract was equivalent to 10% of the total value of the contract. The dissent note dated 01.06.2016 of the Indian Negotiation Team appearing in ‘The Hindu’ today puts the value of bank guarantee at €574 Million.CAG Report clearly records that this was a saving for Dassault Aviation. However, this value is not included to determine the total cost of the aircraft.”
Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram noted other aspects of the deal, “No bank guarantee, no sovereign guarantee and no escrow account! No anti-corruption clause!,” he said in one of a series of tweets.