JPC probe could satisfy the countrymen at large. What’s the hitch then ?

The issue of controvertial Rafale deal is not ready to die down but its rather gaining tremendous momentum day by day with the opposition Congress and the ruling BJP firing salvos after salvos on each other.

The Congress president Rahul Gandhi and his young firebrand team seems to be most vociferous in their attacks against the prime minister while finance minister Arun Jaitley has now come out in the open as a trouble shooter on behalf of his government, trying to put the Congress as well as the former Frence President Francois Hollande in the dock by not only condemning him for coming forward to help the Congress and Rahul Gandhi but also posting his views on Rafale protecting his govt in his face book page accusing Rahul of frivolous charges and lies.

In a way the BJP led NDA seems to be in a defensive mode particularly after the startling disclosure of Hollande about the ruling party’s alleged pressure on French government to replace the offset contract norms in favour of the new entrant Defence Reliance.

If we go into the details of the deals and the claims and counter claims of both the ruling and the opposition parties on Rafale deal there are broadly three points which have led to the controversy go on air.

The first point was regarding the overvaluation of the cost of the Jet Fighter to three times in comparison to the cost fixed during the UPA tenure, from 560 crore rupees per aircraft to about 1700 crores during the current regime.

The second bone of contention was the arbitrary repalcement of the public sector undertaking HAL by the unexperienced and new private company Reliance defence and the third point was the government’s exposure after the startling disclosure by the former French President Francois Hollande about the Indian government’s alleged interference in the deal by asking for giving the offset contract of Rafale to Anil Ambani’s company withdrawing the old HAL’s contract which is having quite an experience in defence production n assembly of fighter planes with the vital hi tech components imported from abroad.

What is important in the whole episode is the fact that the government has till date been denying that it was ever instrumental in favoring the private Company Reliance to bag the contract and that it was purely the discretion of Dassault to award the contract followed by lessenning the numbers of the Jet fighter aircrafts from 126 to 36, increasing the costs’ thrice the previous value and denial by the current French government, the Indian government and Dassault of any complicity in this regard, except the fact that it’s a clear cut govt to govt deal.

While the Congress president has been repeatedly accusing the prime minister and his defence minister of deliberate attempt to oblige the Ambani family keeping the HAL out of the contract, thus charging them with irregularties and alleged corruption, the defence minister Nirmala Sitaraman and finance minister Arun Jaitley have been trying their best to put the ball in the Congress and Rahul’s court saying that it was not the BJP led NDA government but the UPA’s tenure in 2012 that the Ambani’s Reliance was given the contract at Congress’s behest.

While it is true that the deal was signed in 2016 after getting the cabinet committee’s due approval but what is most shocking and unusual is the fact that it was cleared in 2015 when the prime minister visited France already finalising the Reliance Defence company as the offset Indian partner of Dassault Aviation inlieu of the public sector undertaking, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited having built Mig 21, Sukhoi’s and Tejas etc.

Moreover the demand of the Congress and entire non BJP opposition for a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into this vexed issue has been turned down leaving more scope for doubt and suspicion.

The elections of the four states and 2019 are near and Rafale is going have a negative impact on the chances of the saffron party provided the decision for the Joint Parliamentary Committee probe with held by the ruling party is not reconsidered and revoked.

The people of the country want to know the true facts of the deal failing which it may acompany the same political implications n sufferings for the ruling party as confronted by Congress on the Bofors kickback imbroglio during the late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s regime.