Bengaluru: The BJP, which came out strongly against Congress president Rahul Gandhi's meeting with HAL employees on the Rafale deal in the city on Saturday, posed six questions to him to pick holes in his accusations against the Modi government.
Recalling that the Rafale deal was struck by the UPA government at the Centre, state BJP general secretary, C.T. Ravi and party spokesman, Ashwathnarayana wanted to know why it did not finalise the contract after giving an L1 status to Dassault Aviation in January 2012 for acquisition of 126 MMRCA aircraft for the Indian Air Force (IAF).
“Did this not seriously compromise national security?" they asked, adding, “You have come to address HAL employees in Bengaluru on Saturday, but your UPA government betrayed HAL by not doing anything to resolve differences with Dassault Aviation between 2012 and 2014 for the manufacture of Rafale in India. This amounted to pushing HAL out of the deal.”
The BJP leaders, who accused Mr Gandhi of giving false and inconsistent statements about the cost of the Rafale aircraft in his public meetings, argued that he could not compare the cost of Rs 737 crore agreed for the aircraft under the UPA government with the Rs 1,638 crore negotiated by the NDA. “You are deliberately trying to mislead people,” they charged
Taking on the Congress president over his accusation that industrialist, Anil Ambani was favoured with a Rs 30,000 crore offset under the Rafale deal, they pointed out that the Dassault Aviation chairman had a few days ago said that only 10 per cent of the total offset dispensation of Rs 3,000 crore had been invested in Reliance Defence.
