Startling disclosures on Rafael provide extra leverage n ammunition to Congress party n the non BJP opposition?

The Rafael fighter Jet issue is becoming more and more controvertial day by day providing enough leverage and opportunity to the Congress Party which is already on the job of firing salvos after salvos on the NDA government on various other burning issues but concentrating its cumulative efforts on Rafale very much, particulary ensuring that it does not die down at any cost.

After the recent supreme court’s directives to the union government about submitting of the entire details of the Rafael deal to the apex court on 29th of October against the petion filed by advocate Vipin Handa and ML Sharma outrightly opposed by the attorney general that it may amount to the breach of the clause of secrecy n would also impact the national security, has further given extra political ammunition to the Congress party n the non BJP opposition to target the ruling party government and all those allegedly connected with the dubios deal.

The latest bombshell of a startling disclosure by the French news portal about term, “compensation” meaning that it was allegedly mandatory for the French company Dassault to grant offset contract to Reliance Defence as allegedly asked by the government, though denied by Dassault n the Indian side, has also enthused the print media to plant banner news thus giving an unambiguous impression that something dubious of a very serious nature is definitely there which has arbitrarily helped the Ambani family bag the contract replacing the public sector defence undertaking Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, highly experienced in the production and assembly of fighter aircrafts like Tejas’ Sukhois’ and Mig 21 etc since long.

Not only this but the Congress party chief Rahul Gandhi is also visiting the HAL factory and is likely to meet hundreds of engineers and workers who are allegedly likely to go unemployed thus making another news of headlines n breaking news in the entire print and electronics channels of the country.

What is the most interesting part of this whole episode is that despite the government’s trouble shooter finance minister Arun Jaitley and the eloquent law minister Shiv Shankar Prasad outrightly rejecting all the charges of the Congress party and its chief Rahul Gandhi as frivolous, fabricated and biased associating it with the national security of the country and claiming it as the pure and transparent government to government deal with nothing fishy involved in it, the opposition parties especially the Congress are not ready to relent but have rather made the Rafael issue as one of its primary plank of the elections in five states as well as in the forth coming general elections of 2019.

Actually the Rafael matter got the extra sensitivity and blew out of proportion when the former French President Francois Hollande, in whose presence the deal was okayed had made a startling disclosure to the French news portal that it was actually on the insistence of Indian side referring to a high up that his government was compelled to accord the Rafael offset deal to the Ambani group led by Anil Ambani and that they had no option but to do it at any cost.

This revelation created havoc in the Indian media and the political circles of the country encouraging Congress party to design good number of Rafael models and exhibit in protest demonstrations in all the states of the country symbolising alleged high level corruption in the controvertial deal n alleged favour granted to Anil Ambani’s company at the expense of the public sector undertaking HAL which actually was the original offset contractor in the deal finalised by the UPA government in 2014.

Now the crux of the matter is India is going for the national election in 2019 n elections to the five states are already due till November, the result of which will come out on 11th December.

The Congress party and the other non BJP outfits do not want to get rid of this important issue which they think is a main trump card to cash in these forthcoming elections. That’s the reason that the BJP led NDA government seems to have come on the backfoot especially on three major counts (1) the startling disclosure of the former French President Francois Hollande (2) the Supreme Courts direction to the centre to reveal the details of the deal in the apex court and the third : recent disclosure by the French portal about the government’s alleged mandatory and affirmative condition to accord the contract of the Rafael offset deal to Reliance defence as the pre condition for the finalisation of the deal, though denied and rejected by the Dassault Corporation n the NDA government as absurd n baseless.
What’s your take friends?