VISAKHAPATNAM: As the Supreme Court dismissed all petitions against the Rafale-deal on Friday, BJP leaders have demanded Cong-ress president Rahul Gandhi should apologise publicly for alleging irregularities in the procurement of 36 Rafale medium multi-role combat aircrafts from France.
The apex court has said that there was no occasion to doubt the decision-making pro-cess, pricing and offset partners in the multi-billion dollar defence deal between India and France. It has cleared that Indian government had no vested interests on any aspect of the deal.
Rubbishing all allegations of Rahul Gandhi over the Rafale-deal, BJP state official spokesperson Ms K. Suhasini Anand said that Congress president must say sorry to everyone for confusing the public over this issue. She reiterated that Prime Minister Mr Narendra Modi had signed the deal with France in 2016 for the sale of 36 fighter aircrafts. Opposition had alleged that the government pressurised Dassault Aviation to choose Anil Ambani's Reliance Defence as the offset partner due to vested interests.
However, France-based Dassault Aviation CEO Mr Eric Trappier had recently rejected these allegations. He has cleared there was no involvement of Indian government in bringing Reliance.
