Was Rahul Gandhi’s HAL, Bengaluru visit a pre planned strategy of Congress party to derive political capital ?

The visit of the firebrand Congress chief Rahul Gandhi at the Hindustan Aeronautics limited premises to meet, interact and address the HAL employees via the HAL union right in the middle of the Rafale controversy having political overtones and that too when elections of the five states are just a month ahead considered to be the semifinals to the general elections slated for 2019 during the beginning months seems to be its pre strategic and a well thought out plan to not only politically demoralise the ruling BJP led NDA but also send across the message more effectively as to how the alleged shifting of the Rafale offset contract from the public sector undertaking HAL to Reliance defence worth over 30000 crores ( denied and objected by the government and the Reliance Defence) have adversely affected the ongoing progress, income and economic prosperity of HAL and its 30 thousand employees as well as established an alleged wrong precedence of favouring the private parties/ corporates sidelining the productive and reputed public sector undertakings thus enouraging unambiguous favour to crony capitalism.

The way Congress chief Rahul Gandhi’s visit to HAL, Bengaluru, his address to the employees and the concern of the affected employees n union leaders have been widely publicised in the print and electronics media at the pan Indian level unambiguously speaks of the fact that the Congress party and its leader has derived maximum political milieage out of this visit which proved successful despite every attempt by the management and the senior officers of HAL to cancel or quell it by issuing desciplinery action threats and demoralising the employees psychologically as well as through departmental action warnings etc.

This is perhaps for the first time in the political history of the country that any opposition leader or the chief of the oldest political party of the country that ruled for over 60 years since independence has visited any Public Sector Undertaking especially, the one dealing with the defence production considered to be a sensitive department to interact or address its employees after the incumbent government has accorded the defence contract due to them to some other private party in a government to government deal like Rafale worth over 60 thousand crores approximately.

As per the reports appeared in the print media prominently the Nehru Gandhi scion and the Congress chief while interacting with the former and current employees of the Hindustan Aeronautics limited in Bengaluru on Saturday said that the state run military plane maker was a strategic asset and India owed it a great deal for protecting the country.

While the session of interaction was on, several trade union leaders n members of the HAL union n employees expressed their disenchantment, arrogance and annoyance over the attitude of the French Aviation Company Dassault for chosing the private company of Anil Ambani to grant the offset contract of Rafael Jet fighters instead of HAL, having outstanding expertise n experience in defence production and said that they felt highly insulted and cheated.

As per the report of Vikram Gopal from Bengaluru appeared in today’s HT, one of the former HAL employee and Union leader Sirazzuddin said that he felt insulted and let down that a company with 78 years of experience in manufacturing aircraft was left out. He added that we were hurt and don’t understand as to why the deal was taken away from us.

What we want from the influential leaders is that they should please protect their( HAL employees) honour. We are not begging and want to say that we are fully competent to manyfacture Rafael in India, Sirazzuddin added.

Despite the senior officers exerting pressure on the former and the present union leaders not to invite the Congress chief in the HAL premises one of the members of the HAL union said that since both the ruling party and opposition are responsible for running the country it is our duty to invite a leader who is capable and ready to stand with the grievances of the HAL employees to defend HAL n the public sector undertakings and in our view Rahul Gandhi is the best leader to be invited for our cause.

According to Rahul Gandhi: HAL for me is not a company. It’s an institution. When we got our independence, India build strategic assets to enter aero space sectors. Pointing towards the HAL employees he said, the work you have done is tremendous and the country owes a huge debt to you he added.

Congress chief Rahul Gandhi used the opportunity to his full advantage and discussed the Rafale issue and its various intricacies in full detail with the former and present employees including their all form of grievances.

Rahul Gandhi assured them of his fullest cooperation by all means.
It may be recalled that the Rafale Jet fighter controversy has gained momentum these days and the Congress Party particularly its chief Rahul Gandhi is raising
the controversy in every public meeting addressed by him in the states going to polls next month.

The Rafale deal worth worth 8.7 billion US dollars was announced in 2015 to buy 39 Rafale fighters signed a year later. The Congress party has accused the BJP led NDA government of reducing the number of the Jet fighters from 126 to 36 and enhancing the cost of the aircraft by three times from Rs. 526 crores to 1760 crores and also giving the offset contract to Reliance defence instead of public sector undertaking HAL thus allegedly according the benefit of 30000 crores to the private company. The government and the Reliance Defence had vehemently denied all these accusations as frivolous, untrue and biased repeatedly.
What’s your take friends?