Mainstream media has finally woken up and questioned Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Modi gave Rs 30,000 crore to Anil Ambani’ lie. Rahul Gandhi, in his interview to Indian Express, was cornered on the specific figure he keeps on throwing around to allege that Prime Minister Modi gave away Rs 30,000 crore in the Rafale deal.
The Indian Expressed asked Rahul Gandhi that he keeps mentioning Rs 30,000 crore figure, whereas the total amount of the deal as per records is around Rs 60,000 crore. Rahul Gandhi cuts off the interview mid-question and says that there is enough documentation available to show that the benefit to Anil Ambani through the offset contract and other Rafale proceedings will come to Rs 30,000 crore.
The interviewers at Indian Express then question Rahul Gandhi that the offsets don’t quite add up to Rs 30,000 crore. Rahul Gandhi then shifted goal post and said how it is more about the procedure followed under which Anil Ambani got the deal.
Rahul Gandhi then lies, again. He says, “What is prima facie very clear, is that Mr Anil Ambani has no locus standi in making aircraft, is Rs 45,000 crore in debt and barely managed to stay out of jail. On the other hand, HAL has the experience in making aircraft and it’s been doing it for 70 years.” (relevant portion highlighted.)
The truth is, the 36 Rafales will not be made in India, so it’s a no-brainer that Reliance will not be making that. But the interesting point is, they are not even making parts for it. Yes, at present Dassault Reliance Aerospace is not even making parts for Rafale like HAL and some Indian companies will be doing, forget the whole plane. The company is making parts for the Falcon 2000 civil jet plane that is manufactured by Dassault Aviation. This company is now part of the global supply chain network of Dassault, and they have already started manufacturing parts and sending them to assembly plants. Dassault will be investing around € 100 million in the joint venture with Reliance as part of offset obligations related to the Rafale deal, which is less than 3% of the total offset obligation. Reliance is not getting US$20 billion or even US$4 billion as Rahul Gandhi seems to believe, the current investment is less than USD$ 120 million. Meanwhile, Snecma HAL Aerospace Ltd, a joint venture between Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) and Snecma (Safran) of France, will make parts for Rafale jet’s Snecma M88 engine.
When the interviewer further probed Congress President Rahul Gandhi that the 30,000 figure is still not explained by Congress, Rahul Gandhi hits the ball out of the ground by saying how he does not really have the details, but if Indian Express wants to know where Congress got the figure, he could put them in touch with Randeep Surjewala and P Chidambaram, who is himself accused in various corruption scams, who could share the details with them.
Go home, everybody. Rahul Gandhi has just accepted that he has no clue how the figure 30,000 crore he has been throwing around casually, accusing the Prime Minister despite clarifications from the French government as well as Dassault, has come from.
Wonder if the ‘debate’ he demands with the PM on Rafale, will be an open-book test with Randeep Surjewala and P Chidambaram passing him notes since Rahul Gandhi does not really know the calculations.
