After the Supreme Court debunked all the allegations made by Rahul Gandhi about the Rafale deal, the Congress president addressed the media. And instead of tendering an apology for his lies as demanded by the government, he chose to brazenly stick to his lies.
He started the press conference by saying that the Rafale deal has been snatched from Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and gave ₹30,000 to Anil Ambani’s Reliance. Rahul Gandhi repeated the lie that Narendra Modi stole ₹30,000 from people of India. Rahul Gandhi said that if an enquiry is conducted on the Rafale deal is done, only two persons will be found guilty, Narendra Modi and Anil Ambani.
Referring to the Supreme Court judgement on the petitions filed demanding a SIT enquiry into the Rafale deal, the Congress president alleged that the court misled people by saying CAG has gone into the prices of the Rafale aircraft, and the report of CAG has been presented to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in the parliament. He claimed that no such enquiry has been done by CAG, and no report was submitted to PAC. He wondered if Modi had submitted the report to PAC in France, joking maybe there is a PAC in PMO that nobody is aware of, to a huge laughter from the reporters present at the press conference.
It can be noted that there is absolutely no basis in allegations of Rahul Gandhi. India is directly buying the 36 Rafale jets from Dassault, which will be manufactured in France. HAL does licensed production of aircrafts that are made in India under licence from aircraft manufacturers. As all the 36 planes will be made in France, HAL does not come into the picture. Reliance and Dassault have formed a joint venture, which get a fraction of offset business that Dassault is obliged to do as per India’s defence purchase policy. Dassault’s investment in the JV is mere ₹400 crore, not ₹30,000 crore as claimed by Rahul Gandhi. In the Rafale deal the offset obligation is 50%, means total offset business will be around ₹30,000 crore, but that business will be divided among more than a hundred companies, many of them public sector units, and DRDO will be largest receiver of offset business.
These points have been clarified by the government of India several times in the past. In today’s judgement, the Supreme Court also reiterated the same points. But showing a complete disrespect to the Supreme Court of India, Congress president Rahul Gandhi repeated the same lies that he is making for the last several months. Moreover, after he completed his speech, he walked away from the venue, refusing to take any questions from the reporters. While at the beginning he said that prime minister does not talk to media, at the end he himself refused to take questions after ending his monologue.
